Edwardian and Georgian Canadian Poets
12th Aug 2013Posted in: Edwardian and Georgian Canadian Poets 0
Poetry for Pulpit and Platform

[2 blank pages]

POETRY FOR PULPIT
AND PLATFORM

A Manual of Poetry suitable for Pulpit and Platform Use


COMPILED AND EDITED BY
REV. HAMILTON WIGLE, B.A.,
Author of
“The Veteran and Other Poems,” etc.


Containing over two hundred Poems by one hundred different Authors, and classified under one hundred and ninety-one headings in the Topical Index.


TORONTO
WILLIAM BRIGGS
1911
[unnumbered page]

Dedicated
TO
MY BRETHREN OF ALL DENOMINATIONS,
Who humbly stand beside the holy shrine,
And lead the people forth in things Divine.
[unnumbered page]

[2 blank pages]

ERRATA


 

Page 16, 3rd verse, 4th line, for “lean’d” read loved.

“     62, 2nd line, for “spends” read tends.

“     77, Bottom of page, for “Burns” read Coleridge.

“     82, The poem on Love, printed on previous page should not appear here.

“     101, Eleventh line, for “when” read where.

“     103, 5th line, her has been omitted before “dead.”

“     104, Peace, 5th line, for “or” read our.

“     115, 4th verse, second line, for “thou” read though.

“     118, 2nd verse, 2nd line, for “love of” read lone as.

“     124, 1st verse, 2nd line, for “know” read knew.

“     129, Instead of 2nd last line of page read —I want to do some good each day.

“     132, Omit 15th line.

“     145, Last line, for “spinning” read ringing. [unnumbered page]

PREFACE.


 

   FOR twenty years we have been accumulating the choicest poems we could find for pulpit and platform work, and a few months ago undertook to tabulate them, with the sole object of preserving the collection in a compact form. During the process of tabulation it occurred to us that the collection could be made of use to others, and after consulting competent judges, we decided to publish them.

 

SCOPE . . . . . In looking for poems of “pith and power,” suitable for our work, it seemed to us that there was a large unfilled gap between such works as Hoyt’s “Practical Quotations” and Foster’s “Cyclopædia of Poetical Illustrations”—the standard works of a speaker’s library. The former impressed us as being too epigrammatic, and the latter volume as too cumbersome.

 

AIM. . . . .  . This contribution to the book-world is not for revenue purposes, but to foster, if possibly, a heartier appetite for poetry on the part of public speakers, and to encourage a greater use of appropriate selections on the platform. [page 5]

We have used nearly every one of these in our own work, and they did not seem to injure the people. In fact, it is just possible that they constituted the only redeeming feature of the sermon or address.

We are not aware of any other work that exactly meets this need, hence we are presuming to offer to the public a book which, we trust, will at least keep away from pre-empted ground.

 

CONTENTS. . . . .  No doubt the classification of subjects will seem defective to some and meagre to others, but when they remember it is only a manual they are criticizing, and the narrow area of one man’s experience, they may make some allowances.

The poems selected here may not appeal to all, nor may they appeal to very many in the same way, but this is largely a matter of taste, in which we must agree to differ.

However, the miscellaneous character of the poems, together with the fact of such a variety of authorship, gives us a faint hope that some of them will appeal to every reader.

 

VALUE OF POETRY. . . . . Dr. J. W. Dawson claims that we get the purest theology from the poets. “The preachers,” he says, “are too dogmatic and deal too largely in what Christ said, while the poets tell us what Christ was.[page 6]

 

WHY WRITE POETRY? . . . . . Poetry is an art, just as music and painting and sculpture. Theseall address the mind and the emotions. Gilbert Chesterton says that poets are the most imaginative artists. “Poets seldom go mad,” he says; “mathematicians, cashiers, and chess-players do. Poets are seers and prophets, and their optimistic imagination is they safety-valve. Men who try to reason things out, go mad. Poets are really the sanest men, because they calmly float over an infinite sea, while reason is dangerous, because it attempts to cross this sea and cannot.” “Cowper,” he says, “is the only poet who went mad, and reason did it, but poetry saved him.”

 

POETIC INSTINCT. . . . . . With the scientific and philosophic mind the poet has a difficult task, unless he can get through the outer consciousness and reach the threshold of the sub-consciousness. When once there, the feelings are reached, and the soul will be stirred. True poetry will do this for nearly every person if they will but study it sympathetically.

 

WHY MEASURE AND RHYME?. . . . . There is a great difference between poetry and prose. Is it possible anyone can fail to notice this fact? Music is the factor which contributes this disparity. After all, are we not all musical at the soul’s centre? [page 7]

Take this line of Tennyson’s, for example:

 

“In words like weeds I’ll wrap me o’er.”

   Here is the same statement in prose:

 

“I will wrap words about myself like weeds.”

   What shall we say of the person who cannot see a difference here? In the prose from the soul is gone, and it is because of the absence of music.

To put music into literature is the work of the poet-artist, and is this not the vehicle which carries the thought to the citadel of the soul?

If pone will search they will find their sublimest hope, their deepest sorrow and the whole unexpressed self more perfectly portrayed in poetry than in prose.

The poet does not make us think and act as much as he makes us feel. He does not appeal especially to the conscience like the preacher, nor to the mind like the teacher, but to the ever-throbbing, yearning heart. If he can do this—and he can—then he has vindicated his claim as an artist. Poetry is the essence of literature, and everyone who patronizes her will be rewarded with holier and sweeter thoughts.

 

H. W.

AMHERST, NOVA SCOTIA, May 1st, 1911. [page 8]

 

Poetry for Pulpit and Platform


 

ACRE—GOD’S

I like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls
   The burial-ground God’s Acre! It is just;
It consecrates each grave within its walls,
   And breathes a benison o’er the sleeping dust.

God’s Acre! Yes, that blessed name imparts
   Comfort to those, who in the grave have sown
The seed, that they have garnered in their hearts,
   Their bread of life, alas! no more their own.

Into its furrows shall we all be cast,
   In the sure faith that we shall rise again
At the great harvest, when the arch-angel’s blast
   Shall winnow, like a fan, the chaff and grain.

Then shall the good stand in immortal bloom,
   In the fair gardens of that second birth;
And each bright blossom mingle its perfume
   With that of flowers which never bloomed on earth. [page 9]

With thy rude ploughshare, Death, turn up the sod,
   And spread the furrow for the seed we sow;
This is the field and Acre of our God,
   This is the place where human harvests grow!

—Longfellow.


AGE.

“CALL HIM NOT OLD.”

Call him not old whose visionary brain
Holds o’er the past its undivided reign.
For him in vain the envious seasons roll,
Who bears eternal summer in his soul.
If yet the minstrel’s song, the poet’s lay,
Spring with her birds, or children with their play,
Or maiden’s smile, or heavenly dream of art,
Stir the warm life-drops creeping round his heart,
Turn to the record where his years are told,
Count his grey hairs—they cannot make him old!

Oliver Wendell Holmes. [page 10]

ALL’S WELL.

The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake
   Our thirsty souls with rain;
The blow most dreaded falls to break
   From off our limbs a chain;
And wrongs of man to man but make
   The love of God more plain,
As through the shadowy lens of even,
The eye looks farthest into heaven,
On gleams of star and depths of blue
The glaring sunshine never knew!

Whittier.


AMBITION.

          Arise and fly
The reeling Faun, the sensual feast;
Move upward, working out the beast,
   And let the ape and tiger die.

Tennyson.

Peopled and warm is the valley,
   Lonely and chill the height,
But mountains nearest the storm-cloud,
   Are nearest the stars at night.

Selected. [page 11]

ANGELS.

I want to be an Angel, and in the world’s domain
   To scatter beams of sunshine and sing some sweet refrain.
I want to be an angel to guard the Pilgrims’ track,
   And when their lives are ended to bring their spirits back.

Anonymous.


BABYHOOD.

Where did you come from, baby dear?
Out of the everywhere into the here.

Where did you get those eyes of blue?
Out of the sky, as I came through.

What makes the light in them sparkle and spin?
Some of the starry twinkles left in.

Where did you get that little tear?
I found it waiting when I got here.

What makes your forehead so smooth and high?
A soft hand stroked it as I went by. [page 12]

What makes your cheek like a warm, soft rose?
I saw something better than anyone knows.

Whence that three-cornered smile of bliss?
Three angels gave me at once a kiss,

Where did you get this pearly ear?
God spoke, and it came out to hear.

Where did you get those arms and hands?
Love made itself into bonds and bands.

Feet, whence did you come, you darling things?
From the same box as the cherubs’ wings.

How did they all just come to be you?
God thought about me and so I grew.

But how did you come to us, you dear?
God thought about you, and so I am here.

George McDonald.


BETHLEHEM AND CALVARY.

With pilgrim staff and hat I went
   Afar through Orient lands to roam,
Some months of pilgrimage I spent
   And this the word I bring you home:
The pilgrim’s staff you need not crave,
To find Christ’s cradle or His grave, [page 13]
But seek within you; there shall be
His Bethlehem and His Calvary.

O heart, what helps thee to adore
   His cradle where the sunshine glows?
Or what avails to kneel before
   The grave when long ago He rose?
That He should find in thee a birth;
That thou shouldst seek and die to earth
And live to Him—this, this must be
Thy Bethlehem and thy Calvary.

Ruckert.


BETHLEHEM—STAR.

When, marshalled on the nightly plain,
   The glittering host bestud the sky,
One star alone of all the train
   Can fix the sinner’s wandering eye.
Hark! Hark! To God the chorus breaks,
   From every host, from every gem;
But one alone the Saviour speaks:
   It is the Star of Bethlehem.

Once on the raging seas I rode;
   The storm was loud, the night was dark;
The ocean yawned; and rudely blowed
   The wind that tossed my foundering bark.
Deep horror then my vitals froze;
   Death-struck, I ceased the tide to stem;
When suddenly a star arose;
   It was the Star of Bethlehem. [page 14]

It was my guide—my light—my all;
   It bade my dark forebodings cease;
And through the storm and danger’s thrall
   It led me to the port of peace.
Now safely moored, my perils o’er,
   I’ll sing, first in night’s diadem,
For ever and for evermore,
   The Star—the Star of Bethlehem.

H. K. White.


THE BIBLE.

A better love than mine	
   This holy volume gives;
It shows no shadow of decline,
   And when I die it lives.

This book binds man and wife
   In closer love and fears;
And all the ties that bless our life
   It hallows and endears.

N. Frothingham.


 

MY MOTHER’S BIBLE.

This book is all that’s left me now!
   Tears will unbidden start—
With faltering lips and throbbing brow,
   I press it to my heart, [page 15]
For many generations past,
   Here is our family tree;
My mother’s hand this Bible clasp’d;
   She, dying, gave it me.

Ah! well do I remember those
   Whose names these records bear,
Who round the hearthstone used to close
   After the evening prayer,
And speak of what these pages said,
   In tones my heart would thrill!
Though they are with the silent dead,
   Here are they living still!

My father read this holy book,
   To brothers, sisters dear;
How calm was my poor mother’s look,
   Who lean’d God’s Word to hear!
Her angel face—I see it yet!
   What thronging memories come!
Again that little group is met
   Within the halls of home!

Thou truest friend man ever knew,
   Thy constancy I’ve tried;
Where all were false I found thee true,
   My counselor and my guide.
The mines of earth no treasure give
   That could this volume buy;
In teaching me the way to live,
   It taught me how to die.

Selected. [page 16]

 

BIBLE—READING.

“WHEN I READ THE BIBLE THROUGH.”

I suppose I knew my Bible,
   Reading piecemeal, hit or miss,
Now a bit of John or Matthew,
   Now a snatch of Genesis,
Certain chapters of Isaiah,
   Certain Psalms (the twenty-third);
Twelfth of Romans, First of Proverbs—
   Yes, I thought I knew the Word;
But I found that through reading
   Was a different thing to do,
And the way was unfamiliar
   When I read the Bible through.

Oh, the massive, mighty volume!
   Oh, the treasures manifold!
Oh, the beauty and the wisdom
   And the grace it proved to hold!
As the story of the Hebrews
   Swept in majesty along,
As it leaped in waves prophetic,
   As it burst to sacred song,
As it gleamed with Christly omens,
   The Old Testament was new,
Strong with cumulative power,
   When I read the Bible through. [page 17]

Ah! imperial Jeremiah,
   With his keen, coruscant mind;
And the blunt old Nehemiah,
   And Ezekiel refined!
Newly came the Minor Prophets,
   Each with his distinctive robe;
Newly came the song idyllic,
   And the tragedy of Job;
Deuteronomy, the regal,
   To a towering mountain grew,
With its comrade peaks around it—
   When I read the Bible through.

What a radiant procession
   As the pages rise and fall,
James the sturdy, John the tender—
   Oh, the myriad-minded Paul!
Vast apocalyptic glories
   Wheel and thunder, flash and flame,
While the church triumphant raises
   One incomparable name.
Ah! the story of the Saviour
   Never glows supremely true
Till you read it whole and swiftly,
   Till you read the Bible through.

You who like to play at Bible,
   Dip and dabble, here and there,
Just before you kneel, aweary,
   And yawn through a hurried prayer; [page 18]
You who treat the Crown of Writings
   As you treat n other book—
Just a paragraph disjointed,
   Just a crude, impatient look—
Try a worthier procedure,
   Try a broad and steady view;
You will kneel in very rapture
   When you read the Bible through.

—Amos R. Wells.


BOYS.

Boys, we want you, our country wants
   True-hearted, noble boys,
To make this world a happier place,
   To purify its joys;
To stand among the leaders,
   Of every righteous cause,
To spread o’er all the nation
   Bright, just, and blessed laws.

Boys we want you—Jesus wants
   Your hearts His truth to spread;
Follow Him in storm and sunshine,
   Ever in His footsteps tread. [page 19]

There’s a world of light and beauty;
   This is not the traveller’s home;
We are passing on to Zion,
   And we want you all to come.

Selected.


BROTHERHOOD—UNIVERSAL.

For a’ that, and a’ that,
It’s coming yet, for a’ that—
   That man to man, that warld o’er,
Shall brother be, for a’ that.

Burns.


THE CALL OF THE CITY.

The fields stretch far to the rim of the day
   And afar to the rising sun,
The valleys between bear lilies white
   As the snood of a cloistered nun;
The winds of heaven, untrammeled and sweet,
   Fan meadow and fen and fall,
But ever and ever the wind fares forth
   With its burden, the city’s call. [page 20]

The youth, with his hand on the stubborn plow,
   As furrow on furrow he turns,
Bares his head to the tempter breeze,
   And a wondrous fire there burns
In the depths of his steadfast, grave young eyes,
   As he stands there strong and tall—
For over the hush of the fallow field
   Comes stealing the city’s call.

Faint and far like a thing of dreams,
   With palace and mart and spire
With the tread of a million hurrying feet
   With hope and regret and desire—
The city lies, and it calls with a voice
    That touches men’s souls with fire.

Boston Transcript.


CHARACTER.

Build it well whate’er you do;
Build it straight and strong and true;
Build it clean and high and broad;
Build it for the eye of God.

Marden. [page 21]

Not wealth but welfare is success;
   Beneficence life’s crown must bring.
For nothing lives but righteousness,
   And character is everything.

Hezekiah Butterworth.


CHARITY.

Don’t look for the flaws as you go through life,
   And even when you find them
It’s wise and kind to be somewhat blind,
   And look for the virtue behind them.

—Ella Wheeler Wilcox.

               Judge not;
What looks to thy dim eyes a stain,
In God’s pure light may only be
A scar brought from some well-won field,
Where thou wouldst only faint and yield.

—Adelaide Proctor.

There is so much bad in the best of us,
And so much good in the worst of us,
That it doesn’t become any of us,
To speak ill of the rest of us.

Selected. [page 22]

CHEERFULNESS.

Smile once in a while,
   ‘Twill make your heart seem lighter;
Smile once in a while,
   ‘Twill make your pathway brighter.
Life’s a mirror if we smile,
   Smiles come back to greet us;
If we’re frowning all the while
   Frowns forever meet us.

Selected.


CHILDREN.

Nobody sits in the little arm chair;
   It stands in a corner dim;
But a white-haired mother gazing there,
   And yearningly thinking of him,
Sees through the dusk of the long ago
   The bloom of her boy’s sweet face,
As he rocks so merrily to and fro,
   With a laugh that cheers the place.

Sometimes he holds a book in his hand,
   Sometimes a pencil and slate,
And the lesson is hard to understand,
   And figures are hard to mate; [page 23]
But she sees the nod of his father’s head,
   So proud of the little son,
And she hears the words so often said:
   “No fear for our little one.”

They were wonderful days, the dear, sweet days,
   When a child with sunny hair
Was here to scold and kiss and to praise,
   At her knee in the little chair,
She lost him back in the busy years
   When the great world caught the man,
And he strode away past hopes and fears
   To his place in the battle’s van.

But now and then in a wistful dream,
   Like a picture out of date,
She sees a head with a golden gleam
   Bent over pencil and slate;
And she lives again the happy day,
   The day of her young life’s spring,
When the small arm chair stood just in the way,
   The centre of everything.

—Selected.

Ah, what would the world be to us
   If the children were no more!
We should dread the desert behind us
   Worse than the dark before. [page 24]

What the leaves are to the forest,
   With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
   Have been hardened into wood,

That to the world are children;
   Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
   Than reaches the trunks below.

Ye are better than all the ballads
   That ever were sung or said,
For ye are living poems,
   And all the rest are dead.

Longfellow.


CHRIST—DRAWING.

Just as the waxing moon can take
The tidal waters in her wake,
And lead them round and round to break
   Obedient to her drawings dim;
So may the movements of His mind,
The First Great Father of mankind,
Affect with answering movements blind,
   And draw all souls that breathe to Him.

Jean Ingelow. [page 25]

 

CHRIST’S CALL.

Have you heard the voice of Jesus
   Whisper—“I have chosen you”?
Does He tell you in communion
   What He wishes you to do?
Are you in the inner circle?
   Have you heard the Master’s call?
Have you given your heart to Jesus?
   Is He now your All in All?

Selected.


CHRIST—VICTORIOUS.

Triumphant and victorious He appears,
And honor in His looks and habit wears.
   How strong He treads! How stately doth He go!
Pompous, yet solemn, in His pace,
And full of majesty, as is His face;
   Who is this mighty hero? who?

Norris. [page 26]

CHRISTMAS—BETHLEHEM.

O little town of Bethlehem,
   How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
   The silent stars go by;
Yet in the dark streets shineth
   The everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
   Are met in thee to-night.

O holy child of Bethlehem!
   Descend to us, we pray;
Cast out our sin and enter in,
   Be born in us to-day.
We hear the Christmas angels
   The great glad tidings tell;
Oh, come to us, abide with us,
   Our Lord Emmanuel!

Phillips Brooks. [page 27]

 

CITIZENSHIP.

We live in deeds, not years;
     In thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial;
We should count time by heart-throbs.
     He most lives,	
Who thinks most, feels the noblest,
     Acts the best.

Bailey.


CIVILIZATION.

There’s a good time coming, boys,
     A good time coming;
We may not live to see the day,
But earth shall glisten in the ray
     Of the good time coming.
Cannon balls may aid the truth,
     But thought’s a weapon stronger;
We’ll win the battle by its aid—
     Wait a little longer.

There’s a good time coming, boys,
     A good time coming;
The pen shall supercede the sword,
And Right, not Might, shall be the lord,
     In the good time coming. [page 28]
Worth, not Birth, shall rule mankind,
     And be acknowledged stronger;
The proper impulse has been given;
     Wait a little longer.

Charles Mackay.


COMFORT.

THE WASHERWOMAN’S SONG.

In a very humble cot,
In a rather quiet spot,
In the suds and in the soap,
Worked a woman full of hope;
Working, singing, all alone,
In a sort of undertone—
“With the Saviour for a friend,
He will keep me to the end.”

Not in sorrow nor in glee,
Working all day long was she,
As her children, three or four,
Played around her on the floor;
But in monotones the song,
She was humming all day long:
“With the Saviour for a friend,
He will keep me to the end.” [page 29]

It’s a song I do not sing,
For I scarce believe a thing
Of the stories that are told
Of the miracles of old;
But I know that her belief
Is the anodyne of grief
And will always be a friend
That will keep her to the end.

Just a trifle lonesome she;
Just as poor as poor could be;
But her spirits always rose,
Like the bubbles in the clothes,
And, though windowed and alone,
Cheered her with the monotone
Of a Saviour and a friend
Who would keep her to the end.

I have seen her rub and scrub
On the washboard in the tub,
While the baby, sopped in suds,
Rolled and tumbled in the duds,
Or was paddling in the pools,
With old scissors stuck in spools,
She still humming of her friend
Who would keep her to the end.

Human hopes and human creeds
Have their root in human needs; [page 30]
And I would not wish to strip
From that washerwoman’s lip
Any song that she can sing,
Any hope that songs can bring;
For the woman has a friend
Who will keep her to the end.

Eugene Ware.


COMPENSATION.

Is thy cruse of comfort falling?
   Rise and share it with another,
And through all the years of famine
   It shall serve thee and thy brother.
Love Divine will fill thy storehouse,
   Or thy handful still renew;
Scanty fare for one will often
   Make a royal feast for two.

For the heart grows rich in giving,
   All its wealth is living grain;
Seeds which mildew in the garner,
   Scattered, fill with gold the plain,
Is thy burden hard and heavy?
   Do thy steps drag wearily?
Help to bear thy brother’s burden,
   God will bear both it and thee.

—Mrs. Rundle Charles. [page 31]

COMPLAINING.

Some murmur when their sky is clear
   And wholly bright to view,
If one small speck of dark appear
   In their great heaven of blue;
And some with thankful love are filled
   If but one streak of light,
One ray of God’s good mercy, gild
   The darkness of their night.

—Archbishop Trench.

How seldom, friend,
A good, great man inherits
Honor or wealth,
With all his worth and pains,
It sounds like stories
From the land of spirits,
If any man obtain
That which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.

S. T. Coleridge. [page 32]

CONSCIENCE.

But conscience, in some awful, silent hour,
When captivating lusts have lost their power,
Perhaps when sickness, or some fearful dream
Reminds him of religion, hated theme!
Starts from the down, on which she lately slept,
And tells of laws despised, at least not kept;
Shows with a pointing finger, and no noise,
A pale procession of past sinful joys,
All witnesses of blessings foully scorned
And life abused and not to be suborned.

Cowper.


CONSCIENCE—REMORSE.

                                        It’s a dangerous thing;
It makes a man a coward: a man
Cannot steal but it accuseth him; a man
Cannot swear, but it checks him,…
‘Tis a blushing shame-faced spirit, that
Mutinies in a man’s bosom; it fills
A man full of obstacles: it made me once
Restore a purse of gold that by chance I
Found. It beggars any man that keeps it:
It is turned out of towns and cities for
A dang’rous thing; and every man that means
To live well endeavors to trust to himself
And live without it.

Shakespeare. [page 33]

 

CONSOLATION.

LINES ON A SKELETON.

   The following poem was printed in London in 1810. The author is unknown, even though a large sum was offered as a reward to anyone who would discover the author.

 

Behold this ruin! ‘Twas a skull
Once of ethereal spirit full;
This narrow cell was life’s retreat;
This space was thought’s mysterious seat;
What beauteous visions filled this spot;
What dreams of pleasure, long forgot!
Nor life, nor love, nor joy, nor fear
Has left one trace of record here.

Beneath this mouldering canopy
Once shone the bright and busy eye.
But start not at the dismal void,
Nor sigh for greatness thus destroyed.
If with no lawless fire it gleamed,
But through the dews of kindness beamed,
That eye shall be forever bright
When stars and suns are sunk in night. [page 34]

Within this hollow cavern hung
The ready, swift and tuneful tongue.
If falsehood’s honey it disdained,
And when it could not praise was chained;
If bold in virtue’s cause it spoke,
Yet gentle concord never broke;
This silent tongue shall plead for thee
When time unveils eternity.

Say, did these fingers delve the mine,
Or with its envied rubies shine?
To hew the rock or wear the gem
Can little now avail to them.
But if the page of truth they sought,
Or comfort to the mourner brought,
These hands a richer meed shall claim
Than all that wait on wealth or fame.

Avails it whether bare or shod
These feet the paths of duty trod?
If from the bowers of ease they fled
To seek affliction’s humble shed,
If grandeur’s guilty bribe they spurned,
And home to virtue’s cot returned
These feet with angels’ wings shall vie,
And tread the palace of the sky. [page 35]

 

CONSOLATION.

The day is cold, and dark and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall;
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
          And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
          And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
          Some days must be dark and dreary.

Longfellow.


 

CONTENTMENT.

Oh, what a happy soul am I!
Although I cannot see,
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be. [page 36]

How many blessings I enjoy,
That other people don’t!
To weep and sigh because I’m blind
I cannot and I won’t.

Fanny Crosby.


COURAGE.

          Be strong!
We are not here to play, to dream, to drift.
We have hard work to do, and loads to lift.
Shun not the struggle—face it; ‘tis God’s gift.

          Be strong!
Say not the days are evil. Who’s to blame?
And fold the hand and acquiesce—oh, shame!
Stand up, speak out, and bravely, in God’s name.

          Be strong!
It matters not how deep intrenched the wrong,
How hard the battle goes, the day how long;
Faint not—fight on! To-morrow comes the song.

Maltbie D. Babcock. [page 37]

 

COVETOUSNESS.

‘Tis strange the miser should his cares employ
To gain those riches he can ne’er enjoy.
Is it less strange the prodigal should waste
His wealth to purchase what he ne’er can taste?

—Pope.

   Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
   Where wealth accumulates and men decay.

Goldsmith.


The Cross

The Cross is ever fair,
And though no beauty there
The eye of faith discerneth,
Such glory round it burneth
That watching angels wear
Such looks of joy and wonder,
As on the Cross they ponder;
Is it so fair, it is so fair.

Lyra Messianica. [page 38]

THE WAY-SIDE CROSS.

Near, near thee, my son,
   Is the old way-side cross,
Like an old friar cowled,
   In its lichen and moss;
And its cross-beams will point
   To the bright golden span
That bridges the waters
   So safely for man.

C. L. St. John.


CULTURE.

Can rules or tutors educate
The semigod whom we awake?
He must be musical,
Tremulous, impressional,
Alive to gentle influence
Of landscape and sky,
And tender to the spirit’s touch
Of man’s or maiden’s eye:
Not bent on glory overmuch,
But to his native centre fast,
Shall into Future fuse the Past,
And the world’s flowing fates in his own mold recast.

Emerson. [page 39]

CULTURE—SELF-RELIANCE.

Man is his own star; and the soul that can
Render an honest and a perfect man,
Commands all light, all influence, all fate;
Nothing to him falls early or too late,
Our acts, our angels are, or good or ill,
Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Honest Man’s Fortune.


 

DANIEL’S BAND.

(A Hymn)

Standing by a purpose true,	
   Heeding God’s command,
Honor them, the faithful few!
   All hail to Daniel’s band.

   Chorus:—
Dare to be a Daniel!
   Dare to stand alone!
Dare to have a purpose firm!
   Dare to make it known!

Many mighty men are lost,
   Daring not to stand,
Who for God had been a host,
   By joining Daniel’s band. [page 40]

Many giants great and tall,
   Stalking through the land,
Headlong to the earth would fall,
   If met by Daniel’s band.

Hold the Gospel banner high!
   On to victory grand!
Satan and his host defy
   And shout for Daniel’s band.

P. P. Bliss.


DANIEL IN PRAYER.

Imperial Persia bowed to his wise sway,
   A hundred Provinces his daily care.
   A queenly city with its garden fair
Smiled round him, but his heart was far away;
Forsaking pomp and power three times a day
   For chamber lone, he seeks his solace there.
   Through windows westward floats his prayer
Towards the dear distance where Jerusalem lay.

So let me, morn, noon, evening, steal aside,
   And, shutting my heart’s door to earth’s vain pleasure,
   And manifold solicitudes, find leisure—
The windows of my soul to open wide—
   Towards the blest city and that Heavenly treasure
Which past these visible horizons hide.

R. Wilton. [page 41]

 

DEATH—DEPARTURE.

Sunset and evening star,
   And one clear call for me,
And may there be no moaning at the bar
   When I put out to sea.

Twilight and evening bell,
   And after that the dark,
And may there be no sadness of farewell
   When I embark.

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
   The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
   When I have crossed the bar.

Tennyson.


 

DECISION.

I said—“Let me walk in the fields.”
   He said—“No, walk in the town.”
I said—“There are no flowers there.”
   He said—“No flowers, but a crown.”
I said—“But the skies are dark;
   There is nothing but noise and din.”
And He wept as He sent me back—
   “There is more,” He said; “there is sin.” [page 42]

I said—“I shall miss the light
   And friends will miss me, they say.”
He answered, “Choose to-night
   If I am to miss you, or they.”
I pleaded for time to be given.
   He said—“Is it hard to decide?
It will not be hard in Heaven
   To have followed the steps of your guide.”
Then into His hand went mine,
   And into my heart came He,
And I walk in a light Divine
   The path I had feared to see.

Geo. McDonald.


 

DELAY.

I loved thee late,
   Too late I loved thee, Lord,
Yet not so late
   But Thou dost still afford
The proof that Thou wilt bear
   With winning art,
One sinner more
   Upon Thy loving heart.
And may I prove,
   When all my warfare’s past,
Though late I loved Thee,
   I loved Thee to the last.

St. Augustine. [page 43]

 

DESTINY.

The tissue of the life to be
   We weave in colors all our own,
And in the field of destiny
   We reap what we have sown.

—Whittier.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
   Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
   Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
   How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate;
   I am the captain of my soul.

Henley.


DOUBT—AGNOTICISM—UNCERTAINTY.

And if there be no meeting past the grave,
   If all is silence, darkness, yet ‘tis rest.
      Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep,
      For God still giveth His beloved sleep;
   And if an endless sleep He wills, so best.

Huxley’s Epitaph, selected by himself. [page 44]

 

DUTY—CITIZENSHIP.

Not once or twice in our rough island-story,
The path of duty was the way to glory.
He that, ever following her commands,
On with toil of heart and knees and hands,
Through the long gorge to the far light has won
His path upward, and prevailed,
Shall find the toppling crags of duty scaled
Are close upon the shining table-lands,
To which our God Himself is moon and sun.

Tennyson.


EAST—WEST.

O! East is East, and West is West,
And never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently
At God’s great judgment seat;
But there is neither East nor West,
Border, nor breed, nor Birth,
Where two strong men stand face to face,
Tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.

Rudyard Kipling. [page 45]

 

EASTER.

O! the gladness and the glory
Of the blessed Easter story!
Oh! the quick, electric thrilling
   Of the Pentecostal flame!
Death of death, of Life the Giver,
Reign, O Victor King, forever.
   Lowly we, Thy sons, adore Thee;
   Glory, glory to Thy name!

F. W. Farrar, D.D.


 

EXAMPLE.

“Now, papa,” says Ned, “you be careful
   That you step in just the right place,
For right in your footsteps I’m stepping.”
   “Ah! that,” sighed the father, “is the case.”

Let’s stop now and think ere we journey,
   Would we travel the road just ahead
If we knew that our cherished darlings
   Would follow the path we have led?

Ada Clarke. [page 46]

 

EXCELSIOR.

O make thou us, through centuries long,
In peace secure, in justice strong;
Around our gift of freedom draw
The safeguards of Thy righteous law;
And, cast in some diviner mold,
Let the new cycle shame the old.

Whittier.


 

FAITH.

Be like a bird that, halting in her flight,
A while on boughs too slight,	
Feels them give way beneath her and yet sings,
Knowing that she hath wings.

Victor Hugo. [page 47]

 

FAMILY.

The family is a little book,
   The children are the leaves,
The parents are the cover that
   Safe protection gives.

At first, the pages of the book
   Are blank, and smooth, and fair;
But time soon writeth memories,
   And painteth pictures there.

Love is the golden clasp
   That bindeth up the trust;
O break it not, lest all the leaves
   Shall scatter like the dust.

Selected.


FAMILY—HOME.

If there be happiness below,
   She’s in the home enshrined;
The human heart can never know
   Enjoyment more refined,
Than where the sacred band is twined
   Of filial and parental ties,—
That tender union, all combined
   Of Nature’s holiest sympathies!

Fitzarthur. [page 48]

 

FATHERLAND.

Where is the German’s Fatherland?
The Prussian land, the Swabian land?
Where Rhine’s thick clustering fruitage gleams?
Where on the Belt the Sea-mew screams?
               Not there the land.

His is a wider Fatherland,
Where faith is pledged by grasp of hand;
Where truth darts bright from flashing eyes,
And love in hearts warm nestling lies;
               That’s the land,
   That’s the German Fatherland.

Arndt.


FEARLESSNESS—PATRIOTISM.

Much honored were my humble home,
If in its hall King James should come,
But Nottingham has archers good,
And Yorkshire men are stern of mood;
Northumbrian prickers wild and rude;
On Derby hills the paths are steep;
In Ouse and Tyne the fords are deep;
And many a banner will be torn,
And many a knight to earth be borne,
And many a sheaf of arrows spent
Ere Scotland’s King shall cross the Trent.

Scott. (From Marmion.) [page 49]

 

FORGIVENESS.

Have you never felt the pleasure of forgiving fraud or wrong,
Rippling through your soul-like measure, sweet of sweetest poet’s song?
Have you never felt that beauty lies in pain for others borne?
That the sacredness of duty bids you offer love for scorn?

Selected.


FRANCHISE—CITIZENSHIP.

To-day shall simple manhood try
   The strength of gold and land;
The wide world has not wealth to buy
   The power in my right hand.
Where there’s a right to need my vote,
   A wrong to sweep away,
Up! clouted knee and ragged coat!
   A man’s a man to-day.

J. G. Whittier. [page 50]

 

FRATERNITY.

‘Tis coming, the glorious time,
   Foretold by seers and sung in story,
For which, men thinking was a crime,
   Souls leaped to Heaven from scaffolds gory.
The hardest heart hath tender chords,
   To waken at the sound of Brother.
And time will come when scorpion words
   We shall not speak to sting each other.
      ‘Tis coming, yes, ‘tis coming.

‘Tis coming up the slopes of time,
   And this old world is growing better;
We may not see its dawn sublime,
   But high hopes make the heart-throbs lighter.
Then shall unfold our better part
   And in our life-cup yield more honey,
Light up with joy the poor man’s heart
   And fill the world with smiles more sunny.
      ‘Tis coming, yes ‘tis coming.

Gerald Massey. [page 51]

FRIENDSHIP.

Every soul that touches ours—
Be it the slightest contact—
Gets therefrom some good,
Some little grace, one kindly thought,
One inspiration yet unfelt,
For the darkening sky, one gleam of faith,
To brave the thickening ills of life,
One glimpse of brighter skies, beyond the gathering mists,
To make this life worth while,
And heaven a surer heritage.

Selected.


GETHSEMANE.

In golden youth when seems the earth
A summer-land of surging mirth,
When souls are glad and hearts are light,
And not a shadow lurks in sight,
We do not know it, but there lies
Somewhere veiled ‘neath evening skies
A garden which we all must see—
The garden of Gethsemane. [page 52]

With joyous steps we go our ways,
Love lends a halo to our days;
Light sorrows sail like clouds afar,
We laugh, and say how strong we are,
We hurry on: and hurrying, go
Close to the borderland of woe
That waits for you, and waits for me—
Forever waits Gethsemane.

Down shadowy lanes, across strange streams
Bridged over by our broken dreams;
Behind the misty caps of years,
Beyond the great salt fount of tears,
The garden lies. Strive, as you may,
You cannot miss it in your way;
All paths that have been, or shall be
Pass somewhere through Gethsemane.

All those who journey, soon or late,
Must pass within the garden’s gate;
Must kneel alone in darkness there,
And battle with some fierce despair,
God pity those who cannot say,
“Not mine, but Thine,” who only pray,
“Let this cup pass,” and cannot see
The purpose of Gethsemane.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox. [page 53]

 

GIVING.

See the rivers flowing downward to the sea,
Pouring all their treasures bountiful and free;
Yet, to help their giving, hidden streams arise,
Or, if need be, showers feed them from the skies.
Watch the princely flowers their rich fragrance spread;
Load the air with perfume from their beauty shed.
Still their lavish spending leaves them not in dearth,
With fresh life replenished from their mother earth.
So the more thon spendest from thy little store,
With a double bounty, God will give thee more.

Adelaide Proctor.


 

UNIVERSAL GOOD.

All nature is but art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good;
And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is is Right.

Pope. [page 54]

 

GRATITUDE.

Thy bounteous grace with worldly bliss
   Has made my cup run o’er	
And like a kind and faithful friend
   Has doubled all my store.

Ten thousand thousand precious gifts
   My daily thanks employ;
Nor is the least a cheerful heart,
   That tastes those gifts with joy.

Through every period of my life,
   Thy goodness I’ll pursue;
And after death in distant worlds
   The glorious theme renew.

Addison.


GREATNESS.

Greatness and goodness are not means but ends;
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? Three treasures—love and light,
   And calm thoughts, regular as an infant’s breath.
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night—
   Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death.

Coleridge. [page 55]

 

GREECE.

The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!
   Where burning Sappho loved and sung;
Where grew the arts of war and peace,—
   Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all except their sun is set.

Byron.


GRIEF.

In words like weeds I’ll wrap me o’er,
   Like coarsest clothes against the cold,
   But the large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.

Tennyson.


 

GRIT.

Tender-hearted stroke a nettle,
   And it stings you for your pains;
Grasp it like a man of mettle
   And it soft as silk remains.

Aaron Hill. [page 56]

 

GROWTH.

Even the cold earth feels a stir of might,
   And instinct within that reaches and towers,
And, groping blindly above it for light,
   Climbs to a soul in the grass and the flowers.

Selected.


THE OPEN HEART.

Would you understand
   The language with no word,
   The speech of brook and bird,
Of waves along the sand?

Would you make your own
   The meaning of the leaves,
   The song of the silence weaves
Where little winds make moan?

Would you know how sweet
   The falling of the rill,
   The calling on the hill—
All tunes the days repeat?

Neither aims nor art
   Nor toil can help you here;
   The secret of the year
Is in the open heart.

John Valancy Cheney. [page 57]

 

HEAVEN.

DON’T WAKE ME, BUT LET ME DREAM ON.

   Gipsy Smith relates that on one occasion he came into the presence of some scoffers who mocked at his ideas of heaven and salvation, and of meeting loved ones again, and ended by telling him he was dreaming. On retiring that night he wrote the following hymn, which he often sings with telling effect:

 

How dear to my heart is the story,
   Penned ages and ages ago,
That tells of a heavenly country
   The saints of all ages shall know.
I believe in that beautiful country,
   ‘Tis a place of unspeakable bliss,
And there I shall have me a mansion
   When I am done tenting in this.

Chorus—	
   You may tell me that I am just dreaming,
      As when the night’s curtains are drawn;
   It may be, yet, oh! I beseech you,
      Don’t wake me, but let me dream on. [page 58]

I believe that my sainted, sweet mother,
   Whose life was so patient and mild,
Up there in that beautiful country
   Is waiting to welcome her child.
What rapture once more to be with her,
   To feel on my forehead her kiss
And know that she never will leave me,
   As when she was tenting in this.

I believe that my precious companion,
   The children that came of our love,
The neighbors that gathered around us,
   I’ll meet in the mansion above.
At home in that beautiful country,
   Not one of the faithful I’ll miss,
And life will be sweeter and better
   That when we were tenting in this.

T. B. Smith. [page 59]

 

THE HELPER.

When, wounded sore, the stricken heart
   Lies bleeding and unbound,
One only hand—a pierced hand—
   Can salve the sinner’s wound.

When sorrow swells the laden breast,
   And tears of anguish flow,
One only heart—a broken heart—
   Can feel the sinner’s woe.

When penitence has wept in vain
   Over some dark, foul spot,
One only stream—a stream of blood—
   Can wash away the blot.

Lift up Thy bleeding hand, O Lord;
   Unseal that cleansing tide;
We have no shelter from our sin
   But in Thy wounded side.

C. F. Alexander. [page 60]

 

HEROES—CITIZENSHIP.

Count me o’er earth’s chosen heroes—they were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline.
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
By one man’s plain truth to manhood and to God’s supreme design.

New occasions teach new duties; time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood-rusted key.

J. Russell Lowell. [page 61]

HEROISM.

Ruby wine is drunk by knaves,
Sugar spends to fatten slaves,
Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons;
Thunder-clouds are Jove’s festoons,
Drooping oft in wreaths of dread,
Lightning-knotted, round his head;
The hero is not fed on sweets,
Daily his own heart he eats;
Chambers of the great are jails,
And head-winds right for royal sails.

Emerson. [page 62]

 

HOME.

Not a log in this buildin’ but its memories has got,
And not a nail in this old floor but touches a tender spot.
Here the old house will stand, but not as it stood before;
Winds will whistle through it and rains will flood the floor;
Fare you well, old house! you’ve naught that can feel or see,
But you seem like a human being—a dear old friend to me;
And we never will have a better home, if my opinion stands,
Until we commence a-keepin’ house in the house not made with hands.

Will Carleton. [page 63]

 

HOME—FAMILY.

GRAVES OF A HOUSEHOLD.

They grew in beauty side by side;
   They filled our home with glee;
Their graves are severed far and wide
   By mount and stream and sea.
The same fond mother bent at night
   O’er each fair sleeping brow;
She had each folded flower in sight—
   Where are those dreamers now?

One, midst the forests of the West,
   By a dark stream is laid;
The Indian knows his place of rest
   Fair in the cedar shade.
The sea, the deep, lone sea hath one;
   He lies where pearls lie deep.
He was the loved of all, yet none
   O’er his low bed may weep.

One sleeps where Southern vines are drest,
   Above the noble slain;
He wrapt his colors round his breast
   On a blood-red field of Spain. [page 64]
And one—o’er her the myrtle showers
   It leaves, by soft winds fanned;
She faded midst Italian flowers—
   The last of that bright band.

And parted thus they rest, who played
   Beneath the same green tree,
Whose voices mingled as they prayed
   Around one parent knee!
They that with smiles lit up the hall,
   And cheered with song the hearth,—
Alas for love if thou wert all,
   And naught beyond, O Earth!

Mrs. Hemans.


HOPE—FAITH—TRUST.

I falter where I firmly trod,
   And falling with my weight of cares
   Upon the great world’s altar-stairs
That slope through darkness up to God,

I stretch lame hands of faith, and grope,
   And gather dust and chaff, and call
   To what I feel is Lord of all,
And faintly trust the larger hope.

Tennyson. [page 65]

 

HOPE.

Unfading Hope! when life’s last embers burn—
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return,
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour!
Oh! then thy Kingdom comes, Immortal Power!
What though each spark of earth-born rapture fly
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye!
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life’s eternal day—
Then, then, the triumph and the trance begin,
And all the phoenix-spirit burns within!

—Campbell.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast;
Man never is, but always to be, blest;
The soul, uneasy and confined from home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come.

—Pope.

Let the winds blow and billows roll,	
Hope is the anchor of the soul.
But can I by so sight a tie,
An unseen hope on God rely?
Steadfast and sure, it cannot fail;
It enters deep within the veil;
It fastens on a land unknown,
And binds me to my Father’s throne.

—C. Wesley. [page 66]

Eternal Hope! when yonder spheres sublime
Pealed their first notes to sound the march of time,
Thy joyous youth began—but not to fade.
When all the sister planets have decayed;
When rapt in fire the realms of ether glow,
And heaven’s last thunder shakes the world below,
Thou, undismayed, shalt o’er the ruins smile,
And light thy torch at Nature’s funeral pile.

Thomas Campbell.


 

HUMANITY.

Hush, the loud cannon’s roar,
   The frantic warrior’s call!
Why should the earth be drenched with gore?
   Are we not brothers all?

Want, from the wretch depart!
   Chains, from the captive fall!
Sweet mercy, melt the oppressor’s heart—
   Sufferers are brothers all.

Churches and sects, strike down
   Each mean partition—wall;
Let love each harsher feeling drown,—
   Christians are brothers all. [page 67]

Let love and truth alone
   Hold human hearts in thrall,
That heaven, its work at length may own,
   And men be brothers all.

Johns.


 

HUMILITY.

Humble must we be, if to heaven we go,
High is the roof there, but the gate is low;
Whene’er thou speakest look with a lowly eye,
Grace is increased by humility.

Robert Herrick.


HYPOCRISY.

God beholds thee, wretch, though wrapt in prayer,
A wolf disguised, a painted sepulchre;	
Regards no more thy cant, and godly whine,
Than yon dumb statue on the marble shrine,
Whose hands are seen in holy rapture closed,
And steadfast eyes to heaven above disposed,—
Prayer’s senseless image, where no soul within
Speaks through the form and animates the mien.

James Scott. [page 68]

 

IDEAL.

Have we not, in earth’s petty strife,
Some pure ideal of a happy life,
That once seemed possible? did we not hear
The flutter of its wings and feel it near?
And just within our reach it was, and yet,
We lost it in the daily jar and fret,
And now lie idle in a vain regret?
But still our place is kept and it will wait,
Ready for us to fill it, soon or late.
No star’s ever lost we once have seen,
We always may be what we might have been,
Since good, though only thought has life and breath,
By God’s life, can always be redeemed from death,
And evil in its nature is decay,
Any hour can blot it all away.	
The hope that’s lost in some far distant scene,
May be the truer life and this, the dream.

Adelaide Proctor. [page 69]

 

IMMORTALITY—FUTURE LIFE.

My own dim life should teach me this—
   That life must live for evermore;
   Else earth is darkness at the core,
And dust and ashes all that is;
     .     .     .     .     .     .     .    .
And love will last as pure and whole
  As when he loved me here in time,
   And at the spiritual prime	
Reawaken with the dawning soul.

—Tennyson.

Heard ye the sob of parting breath?
Marked ye the eye’s last ray?
No! life so sweetly ceased to be,
It lapsed in Immortality.

James Montgomery. [page 70]

 

INCARNATION.

   He has come! the skies are telling;
   He has quit the glorious dwelling;
And first the tidings came to us, the humble shepherd folk.
   He has come to field and manger,
   And no more is God a Stranger:
He comes as Common man at home with cart and crooked yoke.

   As the shade of a cool cedar
   To a traveller in gray Kedar
Will be the kingdom of His love, the Kingdom without end.
   Tongues and ages may disclaim Him,
   Yet the Heaven of heavens will name Him
Lord of peoples, Light of nations, elder Brother, tender Friend.

Edwin Markham. [page 71]

 

INFLUENCE—EXAMPLE.

The smallest bark on life’s tumultuous ocean
   Will leave a track behind forevermore;
The lightest wave of influence set in motion
   Extends and widens to the eternal shore;
   We should be wary, then, who go before
A myriad yet to be; and we should take
   Our bearings carefully, where breakers roar,	
And fearful tempests gather; one mistake
May wreck unnumbered barks that follow in our wake.

Sarah K. Bolton.


 

IN MEMORIAM.

But since it pleased a vanished eye
   I go to plant it on the tomb,
   That, if it can, it there may bloom,
Or, dying, there at least my die.

Tennyson. [page 72]

INSPIRATION.

I hear great steps that through the shade
   Grow nigher still and nigher;
And voices call like that which bade
   The Prophets come up higher

Lowell.


 

INSTINCT—RELIGIOUS.

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor’d mind
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind;
His soul proud science never taught to stray
Far as the solar walk or milky way;
Yet simple Nature to his hope has giv’n
Behind the cloud-topp’d hill a humbler heav’n;
Some safer world in depth of woods embrac’d,
Some happier island in the wat’ry waste,
Where slaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment, no Christians thirst for gold!
To be, contents his natural desire;
He asks no angel’s wing, no seraph’s fire;
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

Pope. [page 73]

 

JERICHO.

Oh, proud was the battle-cry, Israel, given,
When gathered thy host by the banner of Heaven;
Like the sweep of dark Kedron, the roll of this tide,
When the bands of thy chosen went forth in their pride!

Hark, hark to the trumpet, the echo from far,
The leader of Princes, he speeds to the war!
His arm is thy resting, His breath is thy sword,
And nations shall faint at the voice of His word.

When pealed thy wild shout to the blue mantled sky,
How the foemen shrunk back as he heard it pass by!
The torches grew pale in the halls of their mirth,
And turret and battlement crumbled to earth.

Oh, where is the name like thine, mighty in story?
The Lord with thy triumphs hath blended His glory,
Then lift the dark eye to the azure that’s o’er thee,
And rush for the chaplets that brighten before thee.

Mary E. Brooks. [page 74]

 

JERUSALEM.

Like the song of angel choirs,
Floating o’er the gleaming spires,
While as yet unseen to them
Comes the New Jerusalem.

Like the seer on Patmos gazing,
On the glory downward blazing,
Till upon earth’s grateful sod
Rests the city of our God.

George Eliot.


JOY.

Their lost they have, they hold;
   From pain a keener bliss they borrow.
How natural is joy, my heart!
   How easy after sorrow.

—Jean Ingelow.

There have been tears of wormwood shed
   For every pleasure life can bring;
   The joys of earth are flowers that spring
From out the ashes of the dead.

—E. H. Dewart. [page 75]

Joy is a fruit that will not grow
   In nature’s barren soil;
All we can boast, till Christ we know,
   Is vanity and toil.
But where the Lord hath planted grace,
   And made His glories known,
These fruits of heavenly joy and peace
   Are found, and there alone.

John Newton.


JUDAS.

Still as of old
   Man by himself is priced;
For thirty pieces Judas sold
   Himself, not Christ.

Selected. [page 76]

 

KINDNESS.

Do you wish the world were better?
   Let me tell you what to do:
Set a watch upon your actions,
   Keep them always straight and true.
Rid your minds of selfish motives.
   Let your thought be clean and high;
You can make a little Eden
   Of the sphere you occupy.

Do you wish the world were happy?
   Then remember, day by day,
Just to scatter seeds of kindness
   As you pass along the way;
For the pleasures of the many
   May be ofttimes traced to one,
As the hand that plants an acorn
   Shelters armies from the sun.

Selected.


NATIVE LAND.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
   The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the Kirk?
   Is this me own countree?

Burns. [page 77]

 

LAST OF THE RACE—IMMORTALITY.

Go, Sun, while mercy holds me up
   On nature’s awful waste,
To drink the last and bitter cup
   Of wrath, that man shall taste!
Go, tell the night that hides thy face,
Thou saw’st the last of Adam’s race
   On earth’s sepulchral clod,
The dark’ning universe defy
To quench his immortality
   Or shake his trust in God.

Campbell.


TOO LATE—PROCRASTINATION.

Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill;
Late, late, so late! but we can enter still.
   Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.

No light had we: for that we do repent;
And learning that, the Bridegroom will relent;
   Too late, too late! ye cannot enter now.

No light! so late! and dark and chill the night!
Oh, let us in, that we may see the light!
   No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now. [page 78]

Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet!
Oh, let us in that we may kiss his feet!
   No, no, too late! ye cannot enter now.

Tennyson.


LIFE.

Life! we’ve been long together,
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather;
‘Tis hard to part when friends are dear;
Perhaps ‘twill cost a sigh, a tear;
Then steal away, give little warning,
Choose thine own time;	
Say not Good Night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me Good Morning.

A. L. Barbauld. [page 79]

 

LIFTERS AND LEANERS.

There are two kinds of people on earth to-day,
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.
Not the rich and the poor, for to count a man’s wealth
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.
Not the humble and proud, for, in life’s little span,
Who puts on airs is not counted a man.
Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years
Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears.
No, the two kinds of people on earth I mean
Are the people who lift and the people who lean.
Wherever you go you will find the world’s masses
Are always divided in just these two classes;
And oddly enough you will find, too, I ween,
There’s only one lifter to twenty who lean.
In which class are you? Are you easing the load
Of overtaxed lifters who toil down the road?
Or are you a leaner who lets others bear
Your portion of labor and worry and care?

Ella Wheeler Wilcox. [page 80]

LIGHT.

The night has a thousand eyes,
   And the day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
   With the dying sun.

The mind has a thousand eyes,
   And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
   When love is done.

Francis Bourdillon.


THE LIGHTSHIP—WARNING.

When boats come home across the bar,
And winter’s sunlight dies afar;	
When green and purple dust creeps down
And hides the harbor and the town;
Each night far out to sea a beam
Of pale, wan light sends forth its gleam
Across the peaceful, darkening tides,
And marks the lightship where she rides. [page 81]

When tempest-tossed, the ships slip by
The foam-hid headland, and the sky
Is torn with wrack of scudding cloud,
And winds of winter cry aloud:
Lo, through the roar of crashing wave,
Above the tempest’s moan and rave,
A voice comes o’er the troubled tides,
And marks where yet the lightship rides!

Richard S. Powell.


LOVE.

The night has a thousand eyes,
   The day but one;	
Yet the light of the whole world flies
   When the sun is gone.
The mind has a thousand eyes,
   The heart but one;
Yet the light of the whole life dies
   When love is gone.

—Selected.

In peace, love tunes the shepherd’s reed;
In war, he mounts the warrior’s steed;
In halls, in gay attire is seen;
In hamlets, dancers on the green;
Love rules the court, the camp, the grove,
And men below and saints above;
For love’s heaven, and heaven’s love.

Scott. [page 82]

 

LOVE SHIP.

If all the ships I have at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
Weighed down with gems and silks and gold—
Ah, well! the harbor could not hold
So many sails as there would be
If all my ships came in from sea.

If half my ships came home from sea,
And brought their precious freight to me,
Ah, well! I would have wealth as great
As any king who sits in state,
So rich the treasures that would be
In half my ships now out at sea.

If just one ship I have at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
Ah, well! the storm-clouds then might frown,
For, if the others all went down,
Still, rich and proud and glad I’d be
If that one ship came home to me. [page 83]

If that one ship went down at sea,
And all the rest came home to me,
Weighed down with gems and wealth untold,
With glory, honor, riches, gold,
The poorest soul on earth I’d be
If that one ship came not to me.

O skies, be calm! O winds, blow free,
Blow all my ships safe home to me!
But if thou sendest some a-wreck,
To never more come sailing back,
Send any, all, that skim the sea,
But bring my love ship home to me!

Ella Wheeler Wilcox. [page 84]

 

LOVE—A WOMAN’S.

A sentinel angel sitting high in glory
Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory;
“Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!

“I loved,—and blind with passionate love, I fell.
Love brought me down to death and death to Hell.
For God is just, and death for sin is well.

“I do not rage against His high decree,
Not for myself do ask that grace shall be;
But for my love on earth who mourns for me.

“Great Spirit! let me see my love again
And comfort him one hour, and I were fain
To pay a thousand years of fire and pain.”

Then said the pitying angel, “nay, repent
That mild vow! Look, the dial-finger’s bent,
Down to the last hour of thy punishment!”

But still she wailed, “I pray thee let me go!
I cannot rise to peace and love him so,
O, let me sooth him in his bitter woe!”

The brazen gates ground sullenly ajar,
And upwards, joyous, like a rising star,
She rose and vanished in the ether far. [page 85]

But soon adown the dying sunset sailing,
And like a wounded bird her pinions trailing,
She fluttered back with broken-hearted wailing.

She sobbed, “I found him by the summer sea
Reclined, his head upon a maiden’s knee,—
She curled his hair and kissed him, woe is me!”

She wept, “Now let my punishment begin!
I have been fond and foolish. Let me in
To expiate my sorrow and my sin.”

The angel answered, “Nay, sad soul, go higher!”
To be deceived in your true heart’s desire
Was bitterer than a thousand years of fire.”

John Hay.


MAN—MIND—SOUL.

Were I so tall to reach the pole,
   Or grasp the ocean with my span,
I must be measur’d by my soul;
   The mind’s the standard of the man.

Isaac Watts. [page 86]

 

MARINER’S SONG.

Launch thy bark, Mariner! Christian, God spend thee!
Let loose the rudder-bands!—good angels lead thee!
Set thy sails warily; tempests will come;
Steer thy course steadily! Christian, steer home!

Look to the weather-bow, breakers are round thee!
Let fall the plummet now—shallows may ground thee.
Reef-in the fore-sail there! hold the helm fast!
So—let the vessel ware! there swept the blast.

What of the night, watchman? What of the night?
“Cloudy—all quiet—no land yet—all’s right.”
Be wakeful, be vigilant!—danger may be
At an hour when all seemeth securest to thee.

How! gains the leak so fast? Clean out the hold—
Hoist up thy merchandise—heave out thy gold!
There—let the ingots go!—now the ship rights;
Hurrah! the harbor’s near—lo, the red lights! [page 87]

Slacken not sail yet an inlet or island;
Straight for the beacon steer—straight for the high land;
Crowd all thy canvas on, cut through the foam—
Christian! cast anchor now—Heaven is thy home!

Mrs. Southey.


 

MARY MAGDALENE.

Let the reproach of men abide!
   He shall be well content
To see not seldom by His side
   Thy head serenely bent.

Thou, sharing in the awful doom,
   Shall help thy Lord to die;
And mourning o’er His empty tomb
   First share His victory.

George McDonald. [page 88]

 

MEDITATION—REFLECTION.

I stood on the bridge at midnight,
   As clocks were striking the hour,
And the moon rose o’er the city,
   Behind the dark church tower.

And like those waters rushing
   Among the wooden piers,
A flood of thoughts came o’er me,
   That filled my eyes with tears.

How often, oh, how often,
   I had wished that the ebbing tide
Would bear me away on its bosom
   O’er the ocean wild and wide!

Longfellow. [page 89]

 

GIVE US MEN.

     Give us men!
     Strong and stalwart ones!
Men whom highest hope inspires,
Men whom purest honor fires,
Men who trample self beneath them,
Men who make their country wreathe them
     As her noble sons,
     Worthy of their sires!
Men who never shame their mothers,
Men who never fail their brothers,
True, however false are others:
     Give us men, I say again,
     Give us men.

Selected. [page 90]

 

MIRIAM’S SONG.

Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed—His people are free!
Sing! for the pride of the tyrant is broken,
   His chariots, his horsemen, all splendid and brave;
How vain was their boasting! the Lord hath but spoken,
   And chariots and horsemen are sunk in the wave.
Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea!
Jehovah has triumphed—His people are free.

Thomas Moore.


MISSIONARIES.

Away in foreign lands they wondered how
     Their single word had power!
At home, the Christians, two or three, had met
     To pray an hour.

The weary ones had rest, the sad had joy
     That day; I wondered how!
A ploughman, singing at his work had prayed;
     Lord help them now.

Selected. [page 91]

 

MOSES.

THE BURIAL OF MOSES.

By Nebo’s lonely mountain,
   On this side Jordan’s wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,
   There lies a lonely grave;
And no man knows that sepulchre,
   And no man saw it e’er;
For the angels of God upturned the sod,
   And laid the dead man there.

That was the grandest funeral
   That ever passed on earth;
And no man heard the trampling,
   Or saw the train go forth.
Noiselessly as the spring-time
   Her crown of verdure weaves,
And all the trees on all the hills
   Open their thousand leaves;

Noiselessly as the daylight
   Comes back when night is done,
And the crimson streak on ocean’s cheek
   Grows into the great sun,
So without sound of music,
   Or voice of them that wept,
Silently down from the mountain’s crown
   The great procession swept. [page 92]

And had he not high honor,
   The hillside for a pall,
To lie in state, while angels wait
   With stars like tapers tall?
And the dark rock pines, like tossing plumes
   Over his bier to wave,
And God’s own hand in that lonely land
   To lay him in the grave.

Alexander. [page 93]

 

MOTHER.

WHEN MY MOTHER TUCKED ME IN.

How the stricken years have borne me
   Far away from love and home.
Ah! no, mother leans above me,
   In the nights that go and come.
And it gives me peace and comfort,
   When my heart is sore within,
Just to lie right still and dream
   That my mother tucked me in.
Oh the gentle, gentle breathing
   To her dear heart’s softer beat,
And the quiet, quiet moving
   Of her soft-shod, willing feet.
And, Oh Christ! one boon I ask Thee
   Whatso’er may be my sin,
When I’m dying let me see her.
   As she used to tuck me in.

—Mrs. Garland.

The birds come back to their last year’s nest,
   And the wild rose blooms in the lane;
And gold in the East and red in the West,
   The sun bestirs him again.
Ah! the birds come back to their last year’s nest,
   And the wild rose laughs in the lane;
But I turn to the East and I turn to the West—
   She never comes back again.

Louise Moulton. [page 94]

 

A MOTHER’S SONG.

Time wuz I ‘ad a nest o’ little chillern;
   They chitter’d an’ they chatter’d a’ tha day
An’ what with a’ tha feelin’ an’ tha mendin’
   ‘Twas li’l enough, o’ leisure come my way—
                             Sure ‘nuff,
   ‘Twas li’l but toil an’ moilin’ come my way.

At marnin’ ‘twuz tha washin’ chubby vaces;
   At night ‘twas teachin’ little ‘earts to pray;
‘Twuz fillin’ ‘ungry mouths wi’ fitty vittles,
   An’ scoldin’ ‘em an’ blessin’ ‘em a’ day—
                              My word!
   ‘Twuz frettin’ with an’ blessin’ ‘em a’ day.

‘Twas combin’ ‘em an’ tidyin’ an’ brushin’,
   An’ sendin’ ‘em to schoolhouse ivery morn;
An’ settin’ up o’ nights when they wuz sleepin’,
   A patchin’ an a-mendin’ what was torn—
                              My fey!
   Tha tiny tummilled clothes that ‘ad been torn. [page 95]

But now tha chillern’s left me, an’ I wants ‘em;
   ‘Tes lonesome an’ so quiet, dawntee zee;
My man is settin’ smokin’ or a-noddin’,
   But ‘e can’t fill the chillern’s place for me,—
                              No fey!
   ‘E’ll niver fill tha chillern’s place for me.

They a’ be gone away, grown men and women—
   They’m gone into the town to make their bread.
The awnly one that bides a cheel for iver
   Be yon poar little maidie that be dead—
                               Aw fey!
   Tha awnly one that’s wi’ me is tha dead.

Arthur L. Salmon. [page 96]

 

MUSIC.

Thine own musician, Lord, inspire,
And let my consecrated lyre
   Repeat the Psalmist’s part;
His Son and Thine reveal in me
And fill with sacred melody
   The fibres of my heart.

—Charles Wesley.

Orpheus, with his lute, made trees
And the mountain-tops that freeze
   Bow themselves when he did sing.
To his music plants and flowers
Ever sprung; as sun and showers
   There had made a lasting spring.

Everything that heard him play,
Even the billows of the sea,
   Hung their heads and then lay by.
In sweet music is such art,
Killing care and grief of heart
   Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

Shakespeare. [page 97]

 

NATURE.

Earth’s crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Mrs. Browning.


NEW YEAR.

Ring out the old; ring in the new,
   Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
   The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
   The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
   Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

Tennyson.


NOBILITY.

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own;
Then wilt thou see it gleam in many eyes,
Then will pure light around thy path be shed,
And thou wilt nevermore be sad and lone.

J. Russell Lowell. [page 98]

 

OBEDIENCE.

If ever Jesus has need of me,
   Somewhere in the field of sin,
I’ll go where the darkest places be,
   And let the sunshine in,
I’ll be content with the lowliest place
   To earth’s remotest rim;
I know I’ll see His smiling face,
   If it’s done with a thought of Him.

I’ll fill each day with little things
   As the passing moments fly,
The tendril which to the great oak clings
   Grows strong as it climbs on high,
I’ll trust my Lord, though I cannot see,
   Nor e’er let my faith grow dim;
He’ll smile—and that’s enough for me—
   If it’s done with a thought of Him.

Selected. [page 99]

 

OPPORTUNITY.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.

—Shakespeare.

     The golden opportunity
Is never offered twice; seize then the hour
   When fortune smiles and duty points the way;
Nor shrink aside to ‘scape the spectre fear,
Nor pause, though pleasure beckon from her bower,
   Press forward toward the golden day.

Selected. [page 100]

OPTIMISM.

It is not raining rain to me,
   It’s raining daffodils.
In every shining drop I see
   Wild flowers on the hills.
The clouds of grey infest the day,
   And overhang the town;
It is not raining rain to me,
   It’s raining roses down.
It is not raining rain to me,
   It’s raining clover bloom,
When every busy bumble-bee
Can find his board and room.
Here’s bread for the weary,
   And a fig for him who frets;
It is not raining rain to me,
   It’s raining violets.

Robert Loveman. [page 101]

 

PARDON.

Thus far did I come, laden with my sin,
Nor could aught ease the grief that I was in,
Till I came hither. What a place is this!
Must here be the beginning of my bliss?
Must here be the burden fall from off my back?
Must here the strings that bound it to me crack?”
Blest cross! blest sepulchre; blest rather be
The Man that there was put to shame for me.

John Bunyan.


 

PATRIOTISM.

O Scotia! My dear, my native soil!
   For whom my warmest prayer to Heaven is sent!
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
   Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content.
   And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From Luxury’s contagion weak and vile!
   Then, howe’er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand, a wall of fire, around their much-loved isle.

Burns. [page 102]

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.

No marvel that the lady wept!
There was no land on earth
She loved like that dear land,
Although she owed it not her birth:
‘Twas the land where dead husband slept;
‘Twas the land where she had known
The tranquil convent’s hushed
Repose, and the splendours of a throne.
No marvel that the lady wept!
It was the land of France,—
The chosen home of chivalry,—
The garden of Romance.
One gaze again—one long last gaze,—
“Adieu fair France to thee.”
The breeze comes forth, she is alone
On the unconscious sea.

—Bell.

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand!
If such there breath, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell; [page 103]

High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim;
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonoured and unsung.

Scott.


 

PEACE.

There, shall no tempest blow,
   No scorching noontide heat,
There, shall be no more snow,
   No weary wandering feet.
So we lift or trusting eyes
   From the hills our father trod
To the quiet of the skies
   To the Sabbath of our God.

Selected. [page 104]

 

PENITENCE.

Were not the sinful Mary’s tears
An offering worthy Heaven,
When o’er the faults of former years
She wept—and was forgiven?

When bringing every balmy sweet
Her day of luxury stored,
She o’er her Saviour’s hallow’d feet,
The precious perfume pour’d!

Were not those sweets, so humbly shed,—
That hair,—those weeping eyes,—
And the sunk heart, that inly bled,—
Heaven’s noblest sacrifice?

Thou, that hast slept in error’s sleep,
Oh! would’st thou wake in heaven,
Like Mary kneel, like Mary weep,
“Love much,”—and be forgiven!

Thomas Moore. [page 105]

 

PLEASURES.

Pleasures are like poppies spread;
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or, like the snow-fall in the river,
A moment white, then melts forever.

Burns.


 

PLUCK.

Tumble me down, and I will sit
Upon my ruins, smiling yet;
Tear me to tatters, yet I’ll be
Patient in my necessity;	
Laugh at my scrap of clothes, and shun
Me as a fear’d infection;
Yet, scare-crow like, I’ll walk as one
Neglecting thy derision.

Robert Herrick. [page 106]

 

THE POET.

Call it not vain; they do not err
   Who say that when a poet dies,
Mute Nature mourns her worshipper
   And celebrates his obsequies;
Who say tall cliff and cavern lone
For the departed bard made moan;
That mountains weep in crystal rill;
That flowers in tears of balm distil;
Through his loved groves the breezes sigh;
And oaks, in deeper groans, reply,
And rivers teach their rushing wave
To murmur dirges round his grave.

Scott.


 

THE POETS.

I walked with poets in my youth,
   Because the world they drew
Was beautiful and glorious
   Beyond the world I knew.

The poets are my comrades still,
   But dearer than in youth;
For now I know that they alone
   Picture the world of truth.

W. R. Thayer. [page 107]

POSSIBILITIES.

So nigh is grandeur to our dust,
   So near is God to man,
When Duty whispers low, “Thou must,”
   The youth replies, “I can.”

—Selected.

Lives of great men all remind us
   We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
   Footprints on the sands of time.

Longfellow. [page 108]

PRAYER.

Prayer—the fragrance of a flower
After the refreshing shower;
‘Tis the dew that soars again,
Mist ascending after rain;
‘Tis the life-blood of the tree;
Oft it bleeds in agony.
Oh, the agony of prayer!
How it wrings the soul with care;
One of God’s true witnesses,
This true sign: “Behold, he prays.”

—Robert Maguire.

Man’s plea to man is, that he nevermore
Will beg, and that he never begged before:
Man’s plea to God is, that he did obtain
A former suit, and therefore sues again.
How good a God we serve, that, when we sue,
Makes His old gifts the examples of His new.

—Francis Quarles.

He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best
   All things both great and small;
For the dear God, who loveth us,
   He made and loveth all.

S. T. Coleridge. [page 109]

 

PRAYER—FAMILY.

Then kneeling down, to Heaven’s Eternal King,
   The saint, the father, and the husband prays;
Hope “springs exulting on triumphant wing,”
   That thus they all shall meet in future days.

          .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

From scenes like these old Scotia’s grandeur springs,
   That makes her loved at home, revered abroad.
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings;
   “An honest man’s the noblest work of God.”

Burns.


 

PREACHER.

He held the Lamp each Sabbath day
So low that none could miss the way
And yet so high to bring in sight
That picture fair of Christ, the Light,
That gazing up—the Lamp between—
The hand that held it was not seen. [page 110]

He held the Pitcher, stooping low,
To lips of little ones below,
Then raised it to the weary saint
And bade him dink when sick and faint.
They drank—the Pitcher thus between—
The hand that held it scarce was seen.

He blew the Trumpet soft and clear,
That trembling sinners need not fear,
And then with louder note and bold
To storm the walls of Satan’s hold.
The Trumpet coming thus between,
The hand that held it was not seen.

But when our Captain says—“Well done;
Thou good and faithful servant, come,
Lay down the Pitcher and the Lamp,
Lay down the Trumpet, leave the camp.”
The weary hands will there be seen
Clasped tight in His, but naught between.

Anon. [page 111]

 

PROCRASTINATION.

I know a land where the streets are paved
   With the things we meant to achieve.
It is walled with the money we meant to have saved,
   And the pleasures for which we grieve.
The kind words spoken, the promises broken,
   And many a coveted boon
Are stowed away there, in that land somewhere;
   The land of “Pretty Soon.”	

The road that leads to that mystic land
   Is strewn with pitiful wrecks,
And the ships that have sailed for its sunny strand
   Bear skeletons on their decks.
It is farther at noon than it was at dawn,
   And farther at night than noon.
Oh! let us beware of that land down there—
   The land of “Pretty Soon.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox. [page 112]

 

PROGRESS.

There’s a fount about to stream,
There’s a light about to gleam,
There’s a warmth about to glow,
There’s a flower about to blow,
There’s a midnight darkness changing
     Into gray.
Men of thought and men of action,
     Clear the way!	

Aid the dawning, tongue and pen;
Aid it, hopes of honest men;
Aid it paper, aid it type,
Aid it, for the hour is ripe,
And our earnest must not slacken
     Into play.
Men of thought and men of action,
     Clear the way! [page 113]

 

 

THE PROMISES.

Yes, with one promise from the sacred pages,
   The streams whereof make glad the Church below,
One text worn smooth by use of rolling ages,
   Our soul’s strong enemy we overthrow.
Faith in God’s Word the help of God engages,
   And—“It is written,” puts to flight the foe.

R. Wilton.


PROVIDENCE.

I know not where His islands
   Lift their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift
   Beyond His love and care.

—Whittier.

Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

Lowell. [page 114]

A PSALM OF LIFE.

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
“Life is but an empty dream!”
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,”
Was not written of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, thou stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,	
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife! [page 115]

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

Longfellow. [page 116]

 

RECESSIONAL.

God of our fathers, known of old,
   Lord of our far-flung battle-line,
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
   Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord of God of Hosts, be with us yet
Lest we forget—lest we forget.

The tumult and the shouting dies;
   The captains and the kings depart;
Still stands thine ancient sacrifice,
   An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Rudyard Kipling.


 

RECOMPENSE.

I feel it true whate’er befall;
   I feel it when I sorrow most;
   ‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

Tennyson. [page 117]

REMORSE.

My days are in the yellow leaf;
   The flowers and fruits of love are gone;
The worm, the canker, and the grief
               Are mine, alone!

The fire that on my bosom preys
   Is love of that volcanic isle;
No torch is kindled at its blaze—
               A funeral pile.

—Byron.

Through life’s dull road, so dim and dusty,
I have dragg’d to three-and-thirty;
What have these years left to me?
Nothing except thirty-three.

Byron. [page 118]

 

RENUNCIATION.

He might have built a palace at a word,
Who sometimes had not where to lay His head;
Time was when He had nourished crowds with bread;
Would not one meal unto Himself afford.
Twelve legions girded with angelic sword
Were at His beck—the scorned and buffeted!
He healed another’s scratch: His own side bled,
Side, feet, and hands, with cruel piercings gored.
Oh, wonderful the wonders left undone!
And scarce less wonderful than those He wrought!
Oh, self-restraint, passing all human thought,
To have all power and he as having none!
Oh, self-denying love, which felt alone
For needs of others, never for its own.

Archbishop Trench. [page 119]

REPROOF.

For shame, dear friend, renounce this canting strain.
What wouldst thou have a good, great man obtain?—
Peace? titles? salary? a gilded chain?
Or throne, and corses which his sword hath slain?
Greatness and goodness are not means but ends.

S. T. Coleridge.


REST.

There is a rest that deeper grows,
   In midst of pain and strife;	
A mighty, conscious, willed repose,
   The breath of deepest life.

To have and hold the precious prize,
   No need of jealous bars,
But windows open to the skies,
   And power to see the stars.

Macdonald. [page 120]

 

RESURRECTION.

Oh! that I had lived in that great day!
   How had its glory new	
Filled earth and heaven and caught away
   My ravished spirit, too:
No thoughts, that to the world belong,
   Had stood against the wave
Of love, which set so deep and strong,
   From Christ’s then open grave.

Matthew Arnold.

TALITHA CUMI.

(Mark 5: 41.)

Maiden, to my twelfth year come,
   I had read in Scripture story,
Of a damsel cold and dumb,
   Wakened by the Lord of glory.
And it seemed to me He spoke,
   And His Living word thrilled through me,
Till in me new life awoke,
   And He said “Talitha Cumi.”

Now with lamp I watch and wait
   For my Lord’s returning to me.
Should I slumber when ‘tis late,
   Let that word rouse and renew me; [page 121]
And when long laid in the tomb,
   Long forgot by those who knew me,
Thou wilt not forget to come
   With Thy sweet “Talitha Cumi.”

Author Unknown.


REUNION.

HE WILL GIVE THEM BACK.

          We are quite sure
That He will give them back—bright, pure and beautiful.
We know He will but keep
Our own and His, until we fall asleep.
He does not mean,—though Heaven be fair,—
To change the spirits entering there,
That they should soon forget
Our upraised eyes and wet.

          He will not take
The spirits which He gave, and make
The glorified so new
That they are lost to me and you.
I just begin to think about the gladness and the day,
When they shall tell us all about the way
That they have learned to go—
Heaven’s pathway show. [page 122]

          My lost, my own and I
Shall have so much to see together by and by,
I do believe that just the same sweet face,
But glorified, is waiting in the place
Where we shall meet, if only I
Am counted worthy in that by and by.
I do believe that God will give a sweet surprise
To tear-stained, saddened eyes.

          God never made
Spirit for spirit, answering shade to shade,
And meant to break the quivering threads between;
When we shall wake.
I am quite sure we will be very glad
That for a little while we were so sad.

Anon. [page 123]

 

REWARD.

I shot an arrow into the air,
It fell to earth, I know not where;
For, so swiftly it flew, the sight
Could not follow in its flight.

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song?

Long, long afterward, in an oak
I found the arrow, still unbroken;
And the song, from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Longfellow. [page 124]

 

SABBATH.

From the still heights of this serenest day,
   I trace life’s motions with a clearer eye;
Men’s deeds and lives are only God’s highway,
   Which leads into His glory by and by.

F. T. Greenhalge.


 

SACRIFICE.

The highest glory is not where
‘Mid crimson clouds, the fight is won;
‘Tis to reclaim the erring son,
Long used the sinful yoke to bear.

     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .

The highest benedictions hide
Where sacrifice is pure and true;
And our poor self-denials, too,
If done for Christ, in Him abide.

W. Morley Punshon. [page 125]

DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners, at sunset, was seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host, on the morrow, lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he past;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still. [page 126]

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow, in the glance of the Lord!

Byron. [page 127]

 

SERVICE.

THE HOUSE BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.

“He was a friend to man and he lived in a house by the side of the road.”

Homer.

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
   In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars that live apart
   In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze their path
   Where highway never ran—
But let me live by the side of the road,
   And be a friend to man.

Let me live in the house by the side of the road
   Where the race of men go by,
The men who are good, and the men who are bad,
   As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner’s seat,
   Nor hurl the cynic’s ban;
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
   And be a friend to man. [page 128]

I see from my house by the side of the road,
   By the side of the highway of life—
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
   The men who are faint with strife.
But I turn not away from their smiles or their tears,
   Both parts of an infinite plan—
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
   And be a friend to man.

—Samuel W. Foss.

The bread that bringeth strength I want to give;
The water pure that bids the thirsty live;
I want to help the fainting day by day;
I’m sure I shall not pass again this way.

I want to give the oil of joy for tears,
The faith to conquer crowding doubts and fears;
Beauty for ashes may I give alway;
I’m sure I shall not pass again this way.

I want to give good measure running o’er,
And into angry hearts I want to pour
The answer soft that turneth wrath away;
I’m sure I shall not pass again this way.

I want to give to others hope and faith;
I want to do all that the Master saith;
I want to do all that the Master saith;
I’m sure I shall not pass again this way.

D. S. Ford. [page 129]

 

SERVICE.

May He who taught the morning stars to sing,
Aye keep my chalice pure and fresh and sweet,
And grant me so with loving hand to bring
Refreshment to His weary ones; to meet
Their thirst with water from God’s music spring;
And bearing thus, to pour it at His feet.

Frances Ridley Havergal.


SIN—VICE.

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
As to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet, seen to oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.

Pope. [page 130]

 

SLANDER.

If Satan ever feels remorse,	
   Or hides his face in shame,
‘Tis when he turns a Christian tongue
   Against someone’s good name.

Selected.


THE SLAVE’S SONG.

I’ve now embarked for yonder shore,
   Where man is man by law;
The vessel soon will bear me o’er
   To shake the Lion’s paw.
I no more dread the auctioneer,
   Or fear the master’s frown;
No more to tremble when I hear
   The baying of the hound;
Oh! then, old master, don’t think hard of me;
   I’m on my way to Canada
Where colored men are free.

Elder Hawkins. [page 131]

 

SLEEP.

King Henry.	
How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep! O gentle sleep!
Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down,
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?
Why rather, sleep, liest thou, in smoky cribs,
Upon uneasy pallets stretching thee,
And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,
Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,
Under the canopies of costly state,
And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody?
O thou dull god! why liest thou with the vile,
In loathsome beds, and leav’st the kingly couch,
A watch-case, or a common ‘larum bell?
Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast
In cradle of the rude imperious surge?
.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
Canst thou, O partial sleep! give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude;
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances, and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then, happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Shakespeare. [page 132]

SNOW—WINTER—SPRING.

The valley stream is frozen;
   The hills are cold and bare,
And the wild, white flakes of snow
   Swarm in the darkened air.

I look on the naked forest;
   Was it ever green in June?
Did it burn with gold and crimson
   In the dim autumnal noon?

I look at the barren meadow;
   Was it ever heaped with hay?
Did it hide the grassy cottage
   Where the sky-lark’s children lay?

I look on the desolate garden;
   Is it true the rose was there?
And the woodbine’s musky blossoms
   And the hyacinth’s purple hair? 

I look in my heart and marvel
   If love were ever its own,
If the spring of promise brightened,
   And the summer of passion shone? [page 133]

Is the stem of bliss but withered?
   Will the roots survive the blast?
Are the seeds of the future sleeping
   Under the leaves of the past?

Ah! yes, for a thousand Aprils
   These frozen germs shall grow,
And the dews of a thousand summers
   Live in the folds of the snow.

Bayard Taylor.


SPRING.

I hear the whispering voice of Spring;
   The thrush’s trill; the cat-bird’s cry,—
Like some poor bird with prisoned wing,—
   That sits and sings and longs to fly.

O! for one spot of living green!
   One little spot where leaves can grow,
To love unblamed, to walk unseen,
   To dream above, to sleep below.

Selected. [page 134]

 

STRENGTH—HUMAN.

For tho’ the giant ages heave the hill
   And break the shore, and evermore
Make and break, and work their will;
Tho’ world on world in myriad myriads roll
   Round us, each with different powers,
   And other forms of life than ours,
What know we greater than the Soul?
On God and godlike men we build our trust.

Tennyson.


SYMPATHY.

I am no trumpet, but a reed,—
A broken reed the wind indeed
   Left flat upon a dismal shore:
Yet if a little maid or child
Should sigh within it earnest-mild,
   This reed will answer evermore.

Elizabeth Browning. [page 135]

TEMPERANCE.

What! What! our countrymen in chains!
   The whip on woman’s shrinking flesh!
Our soil yet reddening with the stains
   Caught from scourging warm and fresh.
What! mothers from their children riven!
   And God’s own image bought and sold!
Americans to market driven,
   And bartered as the brute for gold!

Whittier. (on slavery).


THE TENANT.

This body is my house, it is not I;
Herein I sojourn till, in some far sky,
I lease a fairer dwelling, built to last
Till all the carpentry of time is past.
When from my high place, viewing this lone star,
What shall I care where these poor timbers are?
What though the crumbling walls turn dust and loam—
I shall have left them for a larger home. [page 136]

What though the rafters break, the stanchions rot,
When earth hath dwindled to a glimmering spot,
When thou, clay cottage, fallest, I’ll immerse
My long cramped spirit in the universe;
Through uncomputed silences of space
I shall yearn upward to the leaning Face.
The ancient heavens will roll aside for me
As Moses monarched the dividing sea.
This body is my house—it is not I;
Triumphant in this faith I live and die.

Lawrence Knowles.


 

THANKSGIVING.

For flowers that bloom about our feet;
For tender grass, so fresh, so sweet;
For song of bird, and hum of bee;
For all things fair we hear and see,
Father in heaven, we thank thee!

For blue of stream and blue of sky;
For pleasant shade of branches high;
For fragrant air and cooling breeze;
For beauty of the blooming trees,
Father in heaven, we thank thee!

Ralph Waldo Emerson. [page 137]

 

TIDES.

‘Tis weary watching wave by wave,
   And yet the tide heaves onward.
We climb, like corals, grave by grave,
   Yet pave a path that’s sunward.
We are beaten back in many a fray,
   But newer strength we borrow;
And where the vanguard camps to-day
   The rear shall rest to-morrow.

Gerald Massey. [page 138]

TO-MORROW.

‘Tis late at night and in the realm of sleep
My little lambs are folded like the flocks;
From room to room I hear the wakeful clocks
Challenge the passing, like guards that keep
Their solitary watch in tower and steep;
Far off I hear the crowing of the cocks,
And through the opening door that time unlocks
Feel the fresh breathing of To-morrow creep.
To-morrow! the mysterious, unknown guest,
Who cries to me: “Remember Barmecide,
And tremble to be happy with the rest.”
And I make answer: “I am satisfied;
I dare not ask; I know not what is best;
God hath already said what shall betide.”

Longfellow. [page 139]

THE TONGUE.

“The boneless tongue, so small and weak,
Can crush and kill,” declared the Greek.
“The tongue destroys a greater horde,”
The Turk asserts, “than does the sword.”
The Persian proverb wisely saith,
“A lengthy tongue—an early death.”
Or sometimes take this form instead:
“Don’t let your tongue cut off your head.”
“The tongue can speak a word whose speed,
Says the Chinese, “outstrips the steed.”
While Arab sage doth this impart:
“The tongue’s great storehouse is the heart.”
From Hebrew wit the maxim sprung,
“Though feet should slip, ne’er let the tongue.”
The sacred writer crowns the whole,
“Who keeps his tongue doth keep his soul.”

Philip Burrows Strong. [page 140]

 

TRIALS.

Though losses and crosses
Be lessons right severe,	
There’s wit there, you’ll get there,
You’ll find no otherwhere.

Burns.


TRIFLES.

The smallest crust may save a human life;
The smallest act may lead to human strife;
The smallest touch may cause the body pain;
The smallest spark may fire a field of grain;
The smallest deed may kill the truly brave;
The smallest skill may serve a life to save;
The smallest drop the thirsty may relieve;
The slightest shock may wake a heart to grieve;
Naught is too small that it may not contain
The rose of pleasure or the thorn of pain.

Selected. [page 141]

 

TRUST.

Speak, for He can hear thee,
   For Spirit with spirit can meet,
Closer is He than breathing,
   Nearer than hands and feet.

—Tennyson.

Be near me when I fade away,
   To point the term of human strife,
   And on the low, dark verge of life,
The twilight of Eternal Day.

Tennyson.


TRUTH.

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again;
   The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
   And dies among her worshippers.

Bryant. [page 142]

VANITY.

This world is all a fleeting show
For man’s illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,—
     There’s nothing true but Heaven!

And false the light on glory’s plume,
As fading hues of even;
And Love, and Hope, and Beauty’s bloom
Are blossoms gathered for the tomb,— 
     There’s nothing bright but Heaven.

Poor wanderer of a stormy day,
From wave to wave we’re driven,
And fancy’s flash and reason’s ray
Serve but to light the troubled way,
     There’s nothing calm but Heaven.

Moore. [page 143]

 

CHRISTIAN’S VICTORY—TRIUMPH.

My latest sun is sinking fast,
   My race is nearly run,
My strongest trials now are past,
   My triumph is begun.

I’m nearing now the holy ranks
   Of friends and kindred dear,
For I brush the dews on Jordan’s banks;
   The crossing must be near.

I’ve almost gained my heavenly home,
   My spirit loudly sings;
The holy ones, behold, they come!
   I hear the noise of wings.

Oh, bear my longing heart to Him
   Who bled and died for me;
Whose blood now cleanses from all sin,
   And gives me victory.

J. Haskell. [page 144]

 

VIRTUE—REWARD OF.

Hath he not always treasures, always friends—
The good, great man? Three treasures, Love and Light
And Calm Thoughts, regular as infants’ breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night,
Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death!

S. T. Coleridge.


VISIONS OF THE FUTURE.

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm,
With the standards of the peoples plunging through the thunder-storm;
Till the war-drum throbb’d no longer, and the battle-flags were furl’d.
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world.
     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
Not in vain the distance beacons, forward, forward let us range,
Let the great world spin forever down the spinning grooves of change.

Tennyson. [page 145]

VOICE—GOD’S.

And all is well, tho’ faith and form
   Be sunder’d in the night of fear;
   Well roars the storm to those that hear
A deeper voice across the storm.

Tennyson.


THE RED RIVER VOYAGEUR.

The voyageur smiles as he listens
   To the sound that grows apace;
Well he knows the vesper ringing
   Of the bells of St. Boniface.

The bells of the Roman Mission,
   That call from their turrets twain,
To the boatman on the river,
   To the hunter on the plain!

Even so in our mortal journey
   The bitter north winds blow,
And thus upon life’s Red River
   Our hearts, as oarsmen, row. [page 146]

And when the Angel of Shadow
   Rests his feet on wave and shore,
And our eyes grow dim with watching
   And our hearts faint at the oar,

Happy is he who heareth
   The signal of his release
In the bells of the Holy City,
   The chimes of eternal peace!

Whittier.


WEALTH.

.....What is here?
   Gold? yellow, glittering, precious gold?..
                                           This yellow slave
Will knit and break religions; bless th’ accurs’d;
Make the hoar leprosy ador’d; place thieves,
And give them title, knee, and approbation
With senators on the bench.

Shakespeare. [page 147]

 

THE WEST.

I love the West, the wild, wild West;
   I love its snow-capped mountains;
Its canyons, valleys, sunny glens,
Its forests deep and grassy fens,
   Its streams and dashing fountains.

I love the West, the new, new West;
   Her veins new blood is flushing;
New homes, new towns, new cities rise;
From every land beneath the skies
   New life to her is rushing.

I love the West, the Christless West;
   My heart goes out in sorrow
To miners’, loggers’, ranchers’ camp,
To thousand hearts without God’s Lamp—
   Oh, dark must be their morrow!

I love the West, the Christian West;
   God bless the sons and daughters
Who hasten there, God’s Word to take;
Who spend their lives for His dear sake;
   Who sow beside all waters. [page 148]

I love the West, the coming West,
   When, all our land adorning,
The Sun of Righteousness shall rise,
Illuminate the western skies,
   And usher in that morning!

Emma L. Miller.


WORK.

Time worketh; let me work too.
Time undoeth; let me do.
Busy as time, my work I ply
Till I rest in the rest of eternity.

Sin worketh; let me work too.
Sin undoeth; let me do.
Busy as sin, my work I ply
Till I rest in the rest of eternity.

Death worketh; let me work too.
Death undoeth; let me do.
Busy as death, my work I ply
Till I rest in the rest of eternity.

H. Bonar. [page 149]

 

WORDLINESS.

The worldly hope men set their hearts upon
Turns ashes: or it prospers; and anon,
   Like snow upon the desert’s dusky face
Lighting a little hour or two, is gone.

Omar Khayyam.


YOUTHFULNESS—SPRING.

Spring still makes spring in the mind
   When sixty years are told;
Love makes anew the throbbing heart
   And we are never old.
Over the winter glaciers
   I see the summer glow,
And through the wind-piled snowdrift
   The warm rosebud below.

Emerson. [page 150]

INDEX TO FIRST LINES.


PAGE

A better love than mine

15

A sentinel angel sitting high in glory

85

Ah! what would the world be to us

24

All nature is but art, unknown to thee

54

And all is well, tho’ faith and form

146

And if there be no meeting past the grave

44

Arise and fly

11

Away in foreign lands they wondered how

91

Be like a bird that, halting in her flight

47

Be near me when I fade away

142

Be noble! and the nobleness that lies

98

Be strong! We are not here to play, to dream, to drift

37

Behold this ruin! ‘Twas a skull

34

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

44

Boys, we want you, our country wants

19

Build it well, whate’er you do

21

But conscience, in some awful silent hour

33

But since it pleased a vanished eye

72

Breathes there the man with soul do dead

103

By Nebo’s lonely mountain

92

Call him not old whose visionary brain

10

Call it not vain; they do not err

107

Can rules or tutors educate

39

Count we o’er earth’s chosen heroes

61

Do you wish the world were better

77

Don’t look for the flaws as you go through life

22

Earth’s crammed with heaven

98

Even the cold earth feels a stir of might

57

Every soul that touches our’s

52

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm

145

For a’ that and a’ that

20

For flowers that bloom about our feet

137

For shame, dear friend, renounce this canting strain

120

For though the giant ages heave the hill

135

From the still heights of this serenest day

125

[page 151]

Give us men

90

Go, sun, while mercy holds me up

78

God beholds thee, wretch, though wrapt in prayer

68

God of our fathers, known of old

117

Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends

55

Hath he not always treasures, always friends

145

Have we not, in earth’s petty strife

69

Have you heard the voice of Jesus

26

Have you never felt the pleasure of forgiving fraud or wrong?

50

Heard ye the sob of parting breath?

70

He has come! The skies are telling

71

He held the Lamp, each Sabbath Day

110

He might have built a palace at a word

119

He prayeth well who loveth well

109

Hope springs eternal in the human breast

66

How dear to my heart is the story

58

How many thousands of my poorest subjects

132

How seldom, friend

32

How the stricken years have borne me

94

Humble must we be, if to heaven we go

68

Hush, the loud cannon’s roar

67

I am no trumpet, but a reed

135

I falter where I firmly trod

65

I feel it true, whate’er befall

117

I hear great steps that through the shade

73

I hear the whispering voice of spring

134

I know a land where the streets are paved

112

I know not where His islands

114

I like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls

9

I love the late

43

I love the West, the wild, wild West

148

I said, “Let me walk in the fields”

42

I shot an arrow into the air

124

I stood on the bridge at midnight

89

I supposed I knew my Bible

17

I walked with poets in my youth

107

I want to be an angel, and in the world’s domain

12

If all the ships I have at sea

83

If ever Jesus has need of me

99

If Satan ever feels remorse

131

If there be happiness below

48

Ill fares the land to hastening ills a prey

38

Imperial Persia bowed to his wise sway

41

[page 152]

In a very humble cot

29

In golden youth, when seems the earth

52

In peace love tunes the shepherd’s reed

82

In words like weeds I’ll wrap me o’er

56

Is thy cruse of comfort failing

31

It is not raining rain to me

101

It’s a dangerous thing

33

I’ve now embarked for yonder shore

131

Joy is a fruit that will not grow

76

Judge not

22

Just as the waxing moon can take

25

Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill

78

Launch thy bark, mariner! Christian, God spend thee

87

Let the reproach of men abide

88

Let the winds blow and billows roll

66

Life, we’ve been long together

79

Like the song of angel choirs

75

Lives of great men all remind us

108

Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind

73

Maiden, to my twelfth year come

121

Man is his own star; and the soul that can

40

Man’s plea to man is, that he nevermore

109

May He who taught the morning stars to sing

130

Much honored were my humble home

49

My days are in the yellow leaf

118

My latest sun is sinking fast

144

My own dim life should teach me this

70

Near, near thee, my son

39

Nobody sits in the little armchair

23

No marvel that the lady wept

103

Not a log in this buildin’ but its memories has got

63

Not once or twice in our rough island story

45

Not wealth but welfare is success

22

“Now Papa,” says Ned, “you be careful”

46

O! dream of joy! is this indeed

77

O! East is east and west is west

45

O little town of Bethlehem

27

Oh, proud was the battle-cry, Israel, given

74

O make thou us, through centuries long

47

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil

102

O, that I had lived in that great day

121

O! the gladness and the glory

46

O, what a happy soul am I

36

Orpheus, with his lute, mad trees

97

[page 153]

Peopled and warm is the valley

11

Pleasures are like poppies spread

106

Prayer, the fragrance of a flower

109

Ring out the old; ring in the new

98

Ruby wine is drunk by knaves

62

See the rivers flowing downward to the sea

54

Smile once in a while

23

Some murmur when their sky is clear

32

So nigh is grandeur to our dusty

108

Sound the loud timbrel o’er Egypt’s dark sea

91

Speak, for he can hear thee

142

Spring still makes spring in the mind

150

Standing by a purpose true

40

Still as of old

76

Sunset and evening star

42

Tell me not in mournful numbers

115

Tender handed stroke a nettle

56

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold

126

The birds come back to their last year’s nest

94

The boneless tongue, so small and weak

140

The bread that bringeth strength I want to give

129

The clouds, which rise with thunder, slake

11

The Cross is ever fair

38

The day is cold and dark and dreary

36

The family is a little book

48

The fields stretch far to the rim of the day

20

The golden opportunity

100

The highest glory is not where

125

The isles of Greece! The isles of Greece!

56

The night has a thousand eyes

81, 82

The smallest bark on life’s tumultuous ocean

72

The smallest crust may save a human life

141

The tissue of life to be

44

The valley stream is frozen

133

The voyageur smiles as he listens

146

The worldly hope men set their hearts upon

150

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn

128

There are two kinds of people on earth to-day

80

There have been tears of wormwood shed

75

There is a tide in the affairs of men

100

There shall no tempest blow

104

There’s a fount about to stream

113

There’s a good time coming, boys

28

There’s a rest that deeper grows

120

[page 154]

There’s so much had in the best of us

22

Their lost they have, they hold

75

Then, kneeling down to Heaven’s Eternal King

110

They grew in beauty side by side

64

Thine own musician, Lord, inspire

97

This body is my house, it is not I

136

This book is all that’s left me, now!

15

This world is all a fleeting show

143

Though losses and crosses

141

Through life’s dull road so dim and dusty

118

Thus far did I come, laden with my sin

102

Thy bounteous grace with worldly bliss

55

Time worketh; let me work, too

149

Time wuz I ‘ad a nest o’ little chillern

95

‘Tis evening, the glorious time

51

‘Tis late at night and in the realm of sleep

139

‘Tis strange the miser should his cares employ

38

‘Tis weary watching, wave by wave

138

To-day shall simple manhood try

50

Triumphant and victorious He appears

26

Truth crushed to earth shall rise again

142

Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne

114

Tumble me down, and I will sit

106

Unfading hope! when life’s last embers burn

66

Vice is a monster of so frightful mien

130

We are quite sure

122

We live in deeds, not years

28

Were I so tall to reach the pole

86

We’ve not the sinful Mary’s tears

105

What is here? Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold?

147

What! What! our countrymen in chains

136

When boats come home across the bar

81

When, marshalled on the nightly plain

14

When, wounded sore, the stricken heart

60

Where did you come from, baby dear?

12

Where is the German’s fatherland?

49

With pilgrim’s staff and hat, I went

13

Would you understand?

57

Yes! with one promise from the sacred pages

114

[page 155]

 

 

INDEX TO TOPICS.


PAGE

Acre—God’s

9

Age

10

Agnosticism

44

All’s Well

11

Ambition

11

Angels

12

Babyhood

12

Bethlehem

13

Bible—Mothers

15

Bible—Reading

17

Boys

19

Brotherhood

20

Burial of Moses

92

Call of the City

20

Cavalry

13

Character

21

Charity

22

Cheerfulness

23

Children

23

Christ—Drawing

25

Christ’s Call

26

Christ—Victorious

26

Christian’s Victory

144

Christmas

27

Citizenship

28, 45, 50, 61

Civilization

28

Comfort

29

Compensation

31

Complaining

32

Conscience

33

Consolation

34, 36

Contentment

36

Courage

37

Covetousness

38

Cross

38

Culture

39

Daniel

40, 41

Death

42

Decision

42

Delay

43

Departure

42

Destiny

44

Destruction of Sennacherib

126

Doubt

44

Duty

45

East

45

Easter

46

Example

46, 72

Excelsior

47

Faith

47, 65

Family

48, 64

Fatherland

49

Fearlessness

49

Forgiveness

50

Franchise

50

Fraternity

51

Friendship

52

Future Life

70

Future, Visions of the

145

Gethsemane

52

Give us men

90

Giving

54

God’s Voice

146

Good—Universal

54

Gratitude

55

Graves

64

Greatness

55

Greece

56

Grief

56

[page 156]

Grit

56

Growth

57

Heart

57

Heaven

58

Helper

60

Heroes

61

Heroism

62

Home

48, 63, 64

Hope

65, 66

House—By side of road

128

Household

64

Humanity

67

Human Thoughts

135

Humility

68

Hypocrisy

68

Ideal

69

Immortality

70, 78

Incarnation

71

Influence

72

In Memoriam

72

Inspiration

73

Instinct

73

Jericho

74

Jerusalem

75

Joy

75

Judas

76

Kindness

77

Land—Native

77

Last—Race

78

Late

78

Leaners

80

Life

70, 79

Lifters

80

Light

81

Lightship

81

Love

82

Love—A Woman’s

85

Love—Ship

83

Magdalene

88

Man

86

Mariner’s Song

87

Mary Magdalene

88

Mary, Queen of Scots

103

Meditation

89

Men

90

Mind

86

Miriam’s Song

91

Missionaries

91

Moses—Burial

92

Mother

94, 95

Mother’s Bible

15

Mother’s Song

95

Music

97

Native Land

77

Nature

98

New Year

98

Nobility

98

Obedience

99

Open Heart

57

Opportunity

100

Optimism

101

Pardon

102

Patriotism

49, 102

Peace

104

Penitence

105

Pleasures

106

Pluck

106

Poet

107

Possibilities

108

Prayer

41, 109

Prayer, Family

110

Preacher

110

Procrastination

78, 112

Progress

113

Promises

114

Providence

114

Psalm of Life

115

Race

78

Recessional

117

Recompense

117

Red River Voyageur

146

Reflection

89

Religious Instinct

73

Remorse

33, 118

Renunciation

119

Reproof

120

Rest

120

Resurrection

121

[page 157]

Reunion

122

Reward

124, 145

Sabbath

125

Sacrifice

125

Self-Reliance

40

Sennacherib

126

Service

128, 130

Ship—Love

83

Sin

130

Slander

131

Slave’s Song

131

Sleep

132

Snow

133

Song, A Mother’s

95

Song, Slave’s

131

Soul

86

Spring

133, 134, 150

Strength

135

Sympathy

135

Temperance

136

Tenant

136

Thanksgiving

137

Tides

138

To-morrow

139

Tongue

140

Too Late

78

Trials

141

Trifles

141

Triumph

144

Trust

65, 142

Truth

142

Uncertainty

44

Universal Good

54

Vanity

143

Vice

130

Victory—Christians

144

Virtue—Reward of

145

Visions

145

Voice, God’s

146

Voyageur

146

Warning

81

Wayside Cross

39

Wealth

147

West

45, 148

When my Mother Tucked me in

94

Winter

133

Work

149

Wordliness

150

Youthfulness

150

[page 158]

 

INDEX TO AUTHORS.


PAGE

Addison

55

Alexander, C. F.

60, 93

Arndt

49

Arnold, Matthew

121

Babcock, M. D.

37

Bailey

28

Barbauld, Anna L.

79

Beaumont and Fletcher

40

Bell, John

103

Bliss, P. P.

41

Bolton, Sarah K.

72

Bonar, H.

149

Bourdillon, Francis

81

Brooks, Mary E.

74

Brooks, Phillips

27

Browning, Elizabeth

98, 135

Bryant

142

Bunyan, John

102

Burns

20, 77, 102, 106, 110, 141

Butterworth, H.

22

Byron

56, 118, 127

Campbell, George

66, 78

Campbell, Thomas

67

Carleton, Will

63

Charles, Mrs. Rundle

31

Cheney, J. V.

57

Clarke, Ada

46

Coleridge, G.

55

Coleridge, S. T.

120, 32, 109, 145

Cowper

33

Crosby, Fannie

37

Dewart, E. H.

75

Eliot, George

75

Emerson, R. W.

39, 62, 137, 150

Farrar, F. W.

46

Fitzarthur

48

Ford, D. S.

129

Foss, S. W.

129

Frothingham, N.

15

Garland, Mrs.

94

Goldsmith

38

Greenhalge, F. T.

125

Haskell, J.

144

Havergal, Frances Ridley

130

Hawkins, Elder

131

Hay, John

86

Hemans, Mrs.

65

Henley

44

Herrick, R.

68, 106

Hill, Aaron

56

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

10

Hugo, Victor

47

Huxley

44

Ingelow, Jean

25, 75

Johns

68

Khayyam, Omar

150

Kipling

117, 45

Knowles, Laurence

137

Longfellow

10, 25, 36, 89, 108, 116, 124, 139

Loveman, Robert

101

Lowell, J. Russell

61, 73, 98, 114

Macdonald

120

Mackay, Charles

29

Maguire, Robert

109

Markham, Edwin

71

Marden

21

Massey, Gerald

51, 138

McDonald, George

13, 43, 88

[page 159]

Messianica, Lyra

38

Miller, Emma L.

149

Montgomery, James

70

Moore, Thomas

91, 105, 143

Moulton, Louise

94

Newton, John

76

Norris

26

Pope

38, 54, 66, 73, 130

Powell, R. S.

82

Proctor, Adelaide

69, 22, 54

Pushon, W. M.

125

Quarles, Francis

109

Ruckert

14

Salmon, A. L.

96

Scott, James

68

Scott

49, 82, 104, 107

Shakespeare

147, 100, 33, 97, 132

Smith, T. B.

59

Southey, Mrs.

88

St. Augustine

43

St. John C. L.

39

Strong, Pilip B

140

Taylor, Bayard

134

Tennyson

11, 42, 45, 56, 65, 70, 72, 79, 98, 117, 135, 142, 145, 146

Thayer, W. R.

107

Trench, Archbishop

32, 119

Ware, Eugene

31

Watts, Isaac

86

Wells, Amos R.

19

Wesley, Charles

66, 97

White, H. K.

15

Whittier

11, 44, 47, 50, 114, 136, 147

Wilcox, Ella Wheeler

22, 53, 80, 84, 112

Wilton, R.

41, 114

[page 160]

[2 blank pages]

 

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